Campus murder by mob for blasphemy

A 23 year old was killed by a mob of fellow students in a University in Pakistan. Mashal was killed by the mob for alleged disrespect for Sunni Islam.

MARDAN: Hundreds of students beat to death a classmate known for his liberal views on a university campus in the country’s conservative northwest Thursday, police and witnesses said.

Mashal Khan, a journalism student, was stripped, beaten, shot, and thrown from the second floor of his hostel at the Abdul Wali Khan university in Mardan, sources at the university said.Graphic video footage from the scene shows dozens of men outside the hostel kicking and hurling projectiles at a body sprawled on the ground.

Blasphemy is a hugely sensitive charge in the conservative Muslim country, and can carry the death penalty. Even unproven allegations can cause mob lynchings and violence.

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They kill to “purify” their religion

There was no need to guess the timing of the attack on the Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine in the town of Sehwan Sharif in Pakistan’s Sindh province. Thursdays are the most important in the week for Sufis and the shrine is particularly crowded with devotees. The Thursday evening attack by an Islamic State bomber claimed more than 72 lives, including that of women and children, and injured more than 150, which makes it one of the deadliest on Pakistani soil in recent years.

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Pakistan Court bans Valentine’s Day

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday prohibited the celebration of Valentine’s Day in public spaces and government offices across the country ‘with immediate effect’.

A day before Valentine’s Day, the Federal Ministry of Information, Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) and the Islamabad High Commission were told by Justice Shaukat Aziz, who was hearing the case, to submit their replies regarding the immediate execution of the court’s orders.

Print and electronic media have also been warned to “stop all Valentine’s Day promotions immediately”, while Pemra has been ordered to monitor all mediums and send out notifications banning any related promotions.

AFP Photo/RIZWAN TABASSUM)

AFP Photo/RIZWAN TABASSUM)

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Five years in school and not able to read ?

It is true that more and more girls are studying in schools in even the poorest of countries.

But are they all really becoming literate ?

Unfortunately the answer is no.

In a new study on female literacy and years of schooling in 53 low-income countries the authors reported some startling findings.

In half of the countries with comparable data, the majority of adult women who completed four to six years of primary school remain illiterate, in the sense of not being able to read a single sentence. They went to school for several years and learned approximately nothing.
In just a handful of countries, going to schools for at least four or five years is essentially a perfect guarantee of basic literacy.

They also detected big differences between countries in quality of education.

The gaps between countries are also eye-popping. To pick two examples, In Tanzania 57% of women between 25 and 34 years old who reported fifth-grade as their highest educational attainment could read a sentence. In Ghana, that same number was 3%. Essentially, a year of schooling in Tanzania seems to raise your chances of literacy by nearly twenty-times as much as a year of schooling in Ghana. Should we believe that, and if so, what does it mean for Ghanaian education ?

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More than 50 killed in latest terror attack in Pakistan

The death toll in the latest terror attack on a Police recruitment facility in Quetta, Pakistan currently stands at 59. Three gunmen stormed a Police training college on Monday night, started firing randomly and detonating bombs.

Talking to the media, Balochistan Home Minister Sarfraz Bugti said that the operation against the terrorists has been completed and the affected area has been cleared by security forces who fought valiantly against the terrorists.

Bugti said that 700 police recruits were present at the time of the attack.

IG FC Major General Sher Afghan informed the press that the attackers were getting directions from Afghanistan and the initial investigation suggests that the terrorists were affiliated with Lashkar-e- Jhangvi Al Almi.

Hospital sources said that at least 57 dead bodies have been shifted to different hospitals while 116 people including police recruits and several Frontier Corps (FC) personnel have also been injured in the terrorist attack.

According to sources, three terrorists have been killed and 250 police recruits freed after the attack.

Unknown assailants stormed the hostel of the police training centre and opened fire on recruits.

Image from BBC - Credit EPA

Image from BBC – Credit EPA

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17 Indian soldiers killed in terrorist attack in Kashmir

Islamist terror strike from across the border on an Indian Army camp in Kashmir resulted in deaths of 17 soldiers. All four terrorists were killed later in a gun battle.

Terrorists have killed 17 Army soldiers and injured 19 in a suicide attack on an Army camp in Kashmir. Four terrorists struck the camp close to the headquarter of the 12th Brigade at Uri in Baramulla District . This makes it one of the deadliest terrorist strikes on security forces in recent times.
To put the death toll in perspective, seven military personnel had been killed in the Pathankot terror attack in January 2016. The attack on the Indian Air Force base there has since become a major international diplomatic incident.
The high number of casualties in the Uri terror attack could be attributed to the fact that a large number of soldiers, from the Dogra Regiment, had been stationed at the camp in tents and other temporary structures. Some of these tents caught fire during the attack, and the fire spread to other parts of the barracks. The soldiers had been stationed there as they were turning over from a tour of duty.

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Credit – BBC

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Bomb blast in a hospital kills 63 in Pakistan

This terror attack was on a hospital. It happened at a time when mourners were gathering at the hospital  hearing the news of gunning down of a lawyer. Most of them killed were lawyers. Police say it might have been a suicide attack.

This happened in the biggest civil hospital in Quetta, the capital,of troubled Balochistan province. Balochistan has a history of lingering separatist problem and also Islamist violence. No one has claimed responsibility yet.

 At least 63 people were killed and over 40 others were injured when a bomb exploded inside Quetta’s Civil Hospital on Monday.

The blast, followed by firing, occurred as mourners gathered at the hospital after president of Balochistan Bar Association Advocate Bilal Anwar Kasi was shot dead by unidentified assailants in Quetta.

Image credit : AFP

Image credit : AFP

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A fatwa in support for transgender rights

Homosexuality is legally disallowed in all countries of Indian subcontinent. But transgender people, though abused and pushed into sex trade, have some legal provisions to protect their rights. Now we have an Islamic fatwa too, supporting transgender rights, from Pakistan.

A man offers money to Sonia, 26, a transgender Pakistani, while dancing at a birthday party in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

A man offers money to Sonia, 26, a transgender Pakistani, while dancing at a birthday party in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

At least 50 clerics affiliated with a little known Tanzeem Ittehad-i-Ummat have issued a fatwa (religious decree) that marriage with a transgender person is lawful.

The fatwa, released on Sunday, said a transgender person having “visible signs of being a male” may marry a woman or a transgender with “visible signs of being a female” and vice versa.

But, the fatwa added, a transgender person carrying “visible signs of both genders” may not marry anyone.

It declared that robbing transgender people of their share in inheritance was unlawful and that parents who deprive their transgender sons/daughters of inheritance were “inviting the wrath of God”.

The clerics called upon the government to take action against such parents.

The decree also dwelt upon societal attitudes towards transgenders. It went to the extent of terming ‘haraam’ any act intended to “humiliate, insult or tease” them.

The fatwa ended with a word on last rites, declaring that all funeral rituals for a transgender person will be the same as for any other Muslim man or woman.

So if a devout Muslim abuse a transgender person, he can be at least told that what he is doing is haraam ( against Islam). No such fatwa for homosexuals though. They remain haraam.

Islamists kill a famous singer for blasphemous songs

Fundamentalists belonging to “Religion of Peace” are at it again. Killing for protecting their mythical god from music !

Image credit http://arynews.tv/en/obituary-amjad-farid-sabri/

Image credit arynews.tv

One of Pakistan’s most famous and respected musicians, celebrated for devotional songs from a centuries-old mystic tradition, has been shot dead by Taliban gunmen in Karachi.

Amjad Sabri, 45, was shot by two men on a motorbike as he drove through a congested area of the port city on Wednesday, Allah Dino Khawaja, the regional police chief, told Reuters. A relative travelling with the musician was injured but survived.

A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, Qari Saifullah Mehsud, claimed responsibility for the killing and said Sabri was targeted because the group considered his music blasphemous, local media reported.

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A “period” protest

I remember that in my childhood, I was confused when I realised we were not allowed to touch women during their menstrual periods. I could not get any real explanation for this custom. Also they were not allowed to enter kitchen or rooms were gods are offered prayers.. I noticed this mostly in the ancestral home of my parents, when a large number of family members  converge for some occasions and not (as far as I can remember) in my own home. Of course they were not allowed to enter temples during that time and this restriction continue even now. I  was sure there were many more restrictions and taboos on menstruating women then and some are persisting.

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