Watch: Protest march in Srinagar against targeted killings of Shia teachers in Pakistan

Srinagar: A late-night candlelight march was conducted in Srinagar on Friday to protest the recent targeted killing of seven Shia school teachers in Pakistan.

“Mulsim leaders across the world should come forward and condemn such dastardly acts of terrorism. We also condemn any attempts to associate terrorism with Islam. We also condemn terrorism anywhere in the world,” a participant at the protest organised by the Shia community here said. On Thursday, Tehreek-e-Taliban, an umbrella group of several Sunni Muslim terrorist groups, claimed responsibility for killing the Shia teachers in a government-run school in Pakistan. Seven teachers were killed in the Kurram district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

On Friday, The protestors at Srinagar’s Alamgari Bazar, Zadibal area blamed the Pakistan Government for the killings since it has not taken any steps to stop such killings yet.

“Today we have gathered here to protest against the killings of seven Shai teachers. We stand in solidarity with them,” a participant in the protest said.”Pakistani government is behind the attacks. Today we have gathered to show that we stand strong with the Shias of Pakistan,” he said.

During a press conference held on Friday, Jamiat Ulema Isna Asharia Kargil (JUAIK) Ladakh condemned the attack on Shia minorities in Pakistan and urged authorities to take action against perpetrators.

The press conference was addressed by President JUAIK Ladakh, Sheikh Nazir Mehdi Mohammadi who said that the persecution of Shia Muslims of Pakistan is not a new thing whether its Quetta or any other place, the killers of Shias are known and roaming free.

He further said that when the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is in India to attend SCO Summit it’s their demand to the External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to take up the issue with his counterpart and urged them to take action against those terrorists.

According to local police, unidentified gunmen shot the teachers in the staffroom of Government High School Tari Mangal, as per news report. All the teachers were present in the building and were carrying out their exam duties at the time of the incident. The authorities have imposed emergency in all the hospitals in the region.

In another incident in the Parachinar region of Upper Kurram, a school teacher was killed while he was travelling in a car on Shalozan Road. The incident took the total number of teachers killed in a day to eight. According to the police, the teacher, Mohammad Sharif, who was killed inside the car, belonged to the same school in Pakistan where seven teachers were killed.

Earlier talking to the media, prominent political activist Sajjad Kargili said that Takfiri terrorism is a global threat and the world community must unitedly root out the entity of this Ideology.

Takfir is an accusation of unbelief or a declaration of apostasy which leads to the ex-communication of another Muslim. It is the practice of one Muslim declaring another Muslim as an infidel, which some extremist groups use to prescribe the death penalty for apostates.

“The incident of Parachinar is just an example, we have seen such incidents in DI Khan, Hangu, Quetta and Chilas in the past too. The culprits of Chilas are still not arrested, terrorism must be eradicated from the page of history,” he added.

The incident came within a week of several attacks by terrorists, including an assault by a suicide bomber who drove into a military base camp just outside Pakistan’s rugged, lawless tribal district, killing three soldiers.

The Pakistani Taliban have been behind attacks against the state that have become more frequent since last year after it revoked a ceasefire and peace talks with the government in Islamabad collapsed.

The government says the peace talks allowed the release of hundreds of militants and their leaders from prison, enabling them to regroup and launch fresh attacks.