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| India-Pakistan |
| Thousands attend CheemaÂ’s funeral |
| 2006-05-14 |
| SAROKI, Pakistan: Thousands of people gathered yesterday for the funeral of a Pakistani student found dead in a German jail while awaiting trial for an alleged assault over cartoons of Prophet Muhammad, officials said. More than 20,000 attended funeral prayers for 28-year-old Amir Cheema in the dusty town of Saroki near the eastern city of Lahore, said a local government spokesman. An official from an Islamic party put the figure at close to 40,000. “It was a big funeral, participated by up to 20,000 people,” Punjab provincial government spokesman Chaudhry Iqbal said. “Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervez Elahi provided his own helicopter to transport the body from Lahore airport to his native village,” Iqbal said. “The funeral was held peacefully,” he said, adding that about a dozen people fainted due to scorching heat. Earlier senior government officials and close relatives were present on the tarmac when the plane carrying Cheema’s body landed in Lahore from Frankfurt. Hundreds of people, mostly members of hardline parties had gathered outside the airport but police prevented them from entering the premises, witnesses said. “We adopted strict security measures and no incident took place,” police officer Ahmed Din said. People in Saroki, chanting “Long Live Martyr Cheema” and “God is Great”, showered rose petals on the coffin as it was taken from his family home for burial in a nearby graveyard, witnesses said. Some party activists carried banners calling on Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to “Go and bring the killers.” Supporters of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, an organisation banned by the United States earlier this month for its links with terrorism, tried to stop journalists from taking photographs. Despite a post-mortem this week in the presence of two senior Pakistani officials finding Cheema had committed suicide, Pakistan’s main opposition alliance of religious parties has labelled him a martyr. Cheema was found dead in his cell at the Moabit prison in Berlin on May 3 while awaiting trial for allegedly assaulting a German newspaper editor over cartoons of Prophet Muhammad. German prosecutors said on Wednesday that a post-mortem proved that he committed suicide with a noose fashioned from his own clothes in his cell. The post-mortem examination took place in the presence of two Pakistani officials, one from the police and one from the Federal Investigation Agency, they said. Germany’s ambassador to Pakistan, Gunter Mulack, told a news conference in Islamabad yesterday preliminary findings showed there were “no traces or indications of physical violence or other external influence” on Cheema’s body. Cheema’s father has alleged his son, who had been held for six weeks awaiting a court appearance, was tortured to death. His death sparked anger among Islamic parties, which called for Pakistan to lodge a protest with Germany and boycott German products. He had been charged by German prosecutors after entering the Berlin offices of Die Welt newspaper on March 20 armed with a knife. Authorities said he wanted to kill the newspaper’s editor. Earlier this year religious parties held mass demonstrations across the country over the cartoons, which appeared in several Western newspapers. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Wednesday spoke to Amir’s father to convey his “sympathies,” officials said. Aziz said that the death of Amir was “a human tragedy and the matter should not be politicised by any party.” The Islamist parties organised small but fiery protests in the capital and several cities in Punjab province yesterday. The demonstrations were only attended by a few hundred people in each place, but there were demands for the expulsion of the German ambassador and attacks on German interests, together with calls for jihad, or holy war, and the overthrow of Musharraf’s government. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #3 Local Boy Hero Dies Defending Moohammed awww... |
| Posted by: RD 2006-05-14 13:09 |
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| Posted by: gromgoru 2006-05-14 10:13 |
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| Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412 2006-05-14 08:57 |