New Delhi, September 2
Three Indian and 11 Pakistani pilgrims were shot dead by insurgents in Iraq yesterday while they were on their way to the Shiite holy city of Karbala, about 80 km from Baghdad, Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahamed said today.
The three Indian victims have been identified as Jaffer Mashadi of Vishakhapatnam, M Beigh and Mohammad Ahmad Ali, both hailing from Hyderabad.
Mr Ahamed said they were part of a group of 40 pilgrims from India and Pakistan. Women and children were segregated from the group of 40 persons kidnapped by the insurgents and were set free. Then, the men were killed in "execution-style", reports emanating from Baghdad said.
Mr Ahamed quoted the Indian Charge d'Affaires in Baghdad, Mr Kedar Singh, as saying that the bodies of the three Indians were lying in a Karbala hospital. The victims' relatives have been given permission to the Indian mission to conduct the last rites of the dead in Karbala. The group had entered Iraq through Syria.
Karbala City Health Director Salim Kadhim was quoted by AFP as saying that two of the victims were elderly men, two were in their 20s and the remaining were middle-aged.
He said they were killed on a route that comes across the desert from Iraq's western border past the city of Bamadi, a stronghold of Sunni Arab insurgents, who were often blamed for attacking Shiite Iraqi and foreign pilgrims going to Karbala.
Ramesh Kandula writes from Hyderabad: The news of the gruesome killing in Iraq of three pilgrims from the state has sent shockwaves in the city.
While two of those killed were from Hyderabad, one hails from Mogalakuduru in East Godavari district.
The family of Mohammad Ahmad Ali, which lives at Noor Khan Bazar in the old city, is still unable to come to terms with the news. Ali’s 19-year-old daughter Zaheera Begum fainted on hearing the news and was rushed to hospital. His wife and two sons are too dazed to talk.
He used to make the pilgrimage almost every year. He spoke to the family three days back, said one of the relatives who gathered at their modest house said. Ali, 42, runs an STD booth in his locality.
Along with Ali, two others, Moin Baig, a registered medical practitioner who settled in Ghatkesar, near Hyderabad and Jaffer Mashadi from coastal Andhra were killed in the terror attack.
Baig went on the pilgrimage along with his wife and mother-in-law, whose whereabouts are still not known to the family members here.” We don’t have any information from the government”, a relative said.
“We are still in the dark about our other family members. There is no one to give us any information”, Baig’s sister Noorjahan angrily said.
The government has not provided us any information. We came to know about the death of our father
through other pilgrims, Baig’s son Ali Abbas said.
