Increase in Secterian Violence in Karachi - KFC Burned Down!

Living victims of Karachi's killings


By Aamer Ahmed Khan
BBC News, Karachi

Shamoon Khair lost his brother
Shamoon Khair: "Why are we so unfortunate?"

"I don't know why it has happened to us," cries Shamoon Khair, sitting in a corner of his small house in the northern suburbs of Karachi.

"I just don't know why."

He is the eldest brother of Aftab Sagir, one of the six people who died in the Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in Karachi on Monday night.

The fast food outlet was set ablaze by an enraged mob in the aftermath of the bombing of a Shia mosque.

Five people, including two attackers, were killed in the mosque attack. Both attacks were blamed on sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

"We are not even Muslims, why did my brother have to die in that madness?" Shamoon asks.

Strike

The small house in the Christian colony is packed with mourners.

Most of the relatives of the Khair family showed up only this morning, stopped by Wednesday's strike from reaching the grieving family earlier. The strike was called by hardline Islamist politicians to protest at the violence.



The Khairs could be a typical Pakistani Christian family: they speak Punjabi, the men are employed as semi-skilled workers by small time private firms and they are desperately poor.

Shamoon works as a goods handler at a supermarket and his two younger brothers are being trained at a garments factory.

Their father died several years ago and Shamoon and Aftab were the only bread winners for a family of seven.

Together, they made about $100 a month.

Aftab had accepted a janitor's job at KFC only a week before the fateful night, arguing that, at 17, he was old enough to contribute to the household expenses.

"One of my sisters was married and our brother-in-law used to help, but he also died a few months ago after a long illness," Shamoon says.

"Since then, we have been in serious financial difficulties," he says.

"Why are we so unlucky?"

Bitterness

Others were just as unlucky. Abdur Rehman, whose electrician son Mohammed Saleem, also died in the KFC blaze, is a seriously ill man.


Abdur Rehman lost his son in the KFC fire
I neither know the people who killed my son nor can I punish them. All I know is that no one helps our kind
Abdur Rehman

He is severely diabetic and is a chronic heart patient with a badly infected kidney.

He was being looked after by Mohammed Saleem and has no idea who is going to take care of him now.

"I neither know the people who killed my son nor can I punish them," he says. "All I know is that no one helps our kind."

His bitterness is not hard to understand.

The Sindh government has promised compensation of $5,000 each to the affected families but few are expecting to see the money in the near future.

Compensation from the government involves huge amounts of complicated paperwork that most such families are not educated enough to handle.

It took the government 10 months to compensate the families of the victims of a blast at the Binori mosque in Karachi last year.

Little love lost

Given that the city has seen more than 100 deaths from sectarian violence over the past year, it is full of stories of people whose lives have been shattered.

Every time such an incident takes place, dozens of newspaper columns are written urging the government to set up rehabilitation facilities for victims of sectarian and political violence.

But nothing has come of such appeals so far.

Under the circumstances, the six affected families can count themselves lucky that their children were employed by a multinational.

"We have set up a fund to ensure that the families continue to get as much money as their children were earning from us," says Maqsood Zaffar, the head of administration at KFC.

"We will also offer equivalent jobs to the deceased's relatives."

Observers in Karachi describe this situation as one of the many ironies in Pakistan.

There is little love lost between much of the conservative population and the many American franchises that dot Pakistani cities.

But in times of need, Pakistanis discover that these objects of hate are more willing to take responsibility for their employees than their own government does for its citizens.

I mean thats just terrible, what has KFC ever done but brought joy to all our lives

maaro saalon ko lita kar, baigharat kaum hai

The morons who were doing this were performing henious acts against Christians who worked at KFC......So not only violence is performed against shia muslims but christians as well.......

I'm sorry for being flippant, i know its heinous and moronic

actually
this seems like the shias might have retaliated

Yes perhaps, but retaliating against Christian community seems stupid and illogical.......

it dont matter who done bottom line is its wrong what are these people ahcieving by doing this nothing they need to realised that this is wrong and stupid both partys

this looks like the shias might have done it, in all fairness theyre no haajis either waisay

What a shame!

True, I never said they were......The bottom line is though as others have aptly stated, these acts are very henious and stupid......Sadly, I'm pessimistic that things are going to change......My friend rang me yesterday from Pakistan that in our shia mosque daily threats are a common occurance nowdays......

its not just within the shia community, its everywhere, even in sunni mosques.

but to take it out on kfc is moronic, and if the shias did it, more so, cause they are taking it out on the wrong person, the others are guilty of everything already as it is

Yes the bottom line is its about time both communities sat down to end this stupid causes for annilating each other......We are all muslim brothers and sisters, why can the bloody communities live with each other in harmony and respect everyone's religious beliefs......

ALLAH HUAKBAR

Inna illahi wa'ianna illaahi raajehoon

a great deal of this sectarian violence is our own doing...but keep in mind a lot of these groups are supported by india and iran in order to destabilize pakistan...but shia and sunni pakis keep retaliating...keep in mind though that the U.S. during its early days nearly wiped out half a million people in the civil war...i guess its part of the growing pains as a nation...but still, that's no excuse...these people are jahils...

Retaliating on KFC ? that really does not make sense..does it? If u really want to retaliate... simply follow eye for an eye rule.... death of innocent ppl in one mosque for death of innocent ppl in other mosque... as simple as that. Why KFC or why blame America for that matter?
ok chill chill... I am the one standing with a large banner w/ message of peace on it.

this eye for an eye battle has gone long enough...

Pakistan is not suffering frm sectarianism
it is suffring frm
ANTI SHIA ISM

nonsense

Actually commay, hussian may not be far off from what he's saying, there is sort of anti-shia sentiment rising these days in pakistan.....It may be little difficult to understand since you are not shia, but ask people who are shias in pakistan and they will let you know how opressed they feel sometimes.....Although, shias are not completely innocent in this matter, instead of developing dialogue of peace, they react with more violence and kill their fellow muslims which is just stupid and wrong......

wen was the last time there was a bomb blast in sunni mosques (infact cant remember any bomb blast in a sunni holy place)
while shia mosques are bombarded every second month (for the last 3 yrs or so)

while there may be bombings on and off, let us not pretend the shias are that absolved of all wrong doing either, the sects of sunnis that resort to this do so cause they hold the power, from what i have seen of shias and the communities, they are no better and if they could, they would as in the past they have indeed retaliated. shiites also resort a lot to hate mongering. make no mistake, therefore, all this talk of being victimised to me is utter nonsense.

banoria town mosque 10 montha ago, imaam bari lesthan a month a go,the JI islami guy whs shot dead which started al this in the first place ...
i m not sayin that its right but i think both parties are to blame equally for this madness

believe me of not but there are a considerable amont of shia's in power , infact they represent more than their percentage in pakistan.

when was the last time u heard a sunni mosque being bombed?
Shias do target sunnis ...but mostly those who are culprits like Azam Tariq & other mullahs. Remind me when was the last time innocent sunnis were victimized? "Non sense" , "utter non sense"? I have seen u using big words quite often...but barely ever u have any reference or proof or source to present.
Now go do some research wherever u want to come up w/ something dat has something to do w/ more than wat u just feel. Try to find out how many mosques were bombed in last 10 years... how many those were shia mosque & how many of those belonged to sunnis.
and ur assumption dat KFC was attacked by shias is yet another bs.
Were u there at the scene? Even the papers r saying "some "unknown" ppl came out on streets" I have my cousins living in that very area. My 12 yr old cousin barely survived. Ppl at mosque were busy attending the injured ppl....& u r accusing us of going to KFC & killing innocent workers Christians there? Get ur facts straight .

Interesting to see how Pakistanis go around whining about death of 2000 Muslims in Gujrat in 2002....& barely do they realize what actually is going on in their own country. Double standard I say!

and how can you say that it was sunnis that bombed the Shia mosque ? even the papers are saying that it was some unknown ppl.look it could very well be some raw agents tryin to start **** again !!

raw agents? so riaz basra & azim Tariq were raw agents? Sipahe sahaba is raw agent? do u need their webaddress to see what there out & out message is? or do u know it already but turning a blind eye on it?
"Kill a shia and go to jannat "...thats wat their message is in case you needed me to be more specific.

you probably havent lived enough in karachi to know what I said that amir. if you had or were old enough, youd remember and know why i said what i did.

"when was the last time u heard a sunni mosque being bombed?"

I did say that it hasnt happened a lot recently And more importantly even gave the reasons and my thoughts behind it, Apparently you have missed that amir.

"Shias do target sunnis ...but mostly those who are culprits like Azam Tariq & other mullahs. Remind me when was the last time innocent sunnis were victimized?"

go back to the 90s and you will know all that is all i can say and would say.

" "Non sense" , "utter non sense"? I have seen u using big words quite often...but barely ever u have any reference or proof or source to present."

When needed, i have given enough reasons/references. In this case, i didnt need to, atleast thats what I thought. I stated that the shias resort to a lot of hate mongering and if you're telling me thats not true, then what can one say. I would be saying nonsense though then

"and ur assumption dat KFC was attacked by shias is yet another bs."

most assumptions are, and i believe you have conclusive proof of who did the shia bombing, i believe

In case, it still isnt crystal, let me again say
that all this whinging and whining about being victims when shias themself try to spread hate to counter it all but Cant do it, due to the number, is shall we say, for lack of a better word, hypocritical and british
Ga would agree with the british part

this whole thing brings jinnah's two-nation theory into disrepute...now that we don't have hindus to fight with, we fight with eachother...pakistan was built on the premise of muslims living in harmony free from hindu rule...that definitely ain't happening...anyways, the ones who committ these crimes are usually uneducated jahils...kind of stupid on part of the shias to randomly target christians though...bicharay aren't even involved in this mess...

Aurangzeb,

I agree with you, its the uneducated jihadis who are being brainwashed by the stupid mullahs and bearacracy into thinking if they blow up each other, they will be greeted with honour and respect and salvation into heaven.....

There is a mosque right beside the KFC. A bomb blew up it it, and a really close friend of my cousin was seriously hurt. He saw 2 jaish-e-mohammad ppl coming into the mosque, he tried to stop them but then he was shot in the leg. Then, when the bomb exploded, his intestines came out, and his wrists have been crushed. He is in ICU. Please pray and make dua for him.

And this happend 2 days after the KFC burning Just goes to show how retarded the security forces in Pakistan are. They can't even protect a highly sensitive area.

Taha,

I'm sorry to hear that your friend got badly injured and is in icu.......I will pray for him that he makes a full recovery......You've highlighted an important concern regarding the ineptitude and corruption that exists within the police system....

A letter recovered from the pocket of one of the attackers of a Shia mosque in Karachi on Monday warns of more terror attacks, police say.
The letter was signed by the current operational head of a Sunni militant outfit, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the Associated Press news agency said.

The letter said the group carried out the mosque raid, in which five died.

Source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4603011.stm

trust bbc?

and very interesting to see someone being really concerned abt these 5 ppl killed at KFC, when he actually had not even a single word to offer on this thread when 20 ppl died in Islamabad. Not dat I care or makes a difference , but certainly shows someone here is biased a lil more than necessary.
http://pakpassion.net/ppforumlive/v...r=asc&star t=0

Having said that, I personally abhor the incident where innocent ppl at KFC were killed. I certainly hope that ppl responisble for this pathetic act-shia, sunni, wahhabi or whatever, shud be punished & brought to justice. Alongwith that , I also hope & pray dat ppl responsible for death of shias in Islamabad & Karachi be brought to justice as well.

its gr8 to know you are such a just person, but the reality is, this can only happen in our dreams. the world is coming to a sorrow end, and this is a sign of it.

Lets just sit back and try to make our own amaal good so that we can attain jannat ul firdaus.