Three female education workers sprayed with bullets

[HAIDER]

MANSEHRA: Three female workers and a driver of a USAID-funded Project Rise International were killed by unidentified gunmen here at Kund Bangla area on Monday.

Local people suspect the involvement of militants in the occurrence which took place in the jurisdiction of Shinkiari police station. The incident took place at around 4.30 p.m near a deserted spot.

The deceased include a social mobilizer of the Rise International, Sadif Yar Mohammad of Shabkadar (Charsadda); an assistant education officer, Aujum Zab of Mansehra, who was attached with the NGO; another unidentified female worker and their driver Saifullah Khan, hailing from Pabbi (Nowshera).

They were on their way back to Mansehra from a mountainous Kund Bangla area of the District when some unknown assailants killed all of them by spraying their bodies with the bullets.

‘The team had gone there to mobilize the local community to send their children to schools,’ said Shahzad Ahmad, the project coordinator of Rise International which works in the field of education jointly with the education department in 18 union councils of Mansehra Tehsil.

He said that the NGO had not received threats from any quarter. He added that they had set up the Parent Teacher Associations at the village level and their female staff works for the female students of the community.

At the scene of occurrence the body of the driver was found at some distance from the vehicle in which the bodies of three female workers were laying in pool of blood.

‘The scene was gruesome. The bodies were in bad shape as the assailants had sprayed them with bullets,’ said an eye witness who had seen the bodies.

After getting information about the incident the Police reached there and shifted the bodies to Rural Health Centre, Shinkiari from where they were shifted to King Abdullah Teaching Hospital in Mansehra for autopsy. So far no one has claimed the responsibility for the occurrence.

The Mansehra district police officer Akhtar Hayyat Khan said that he was not in a position to say any thing about the incident. He added that after the post mortem and preliminary investigation he would be in a position to give some information about the occurrence.

On Feb 25, 2008, unidentified gunmen had attacked the office of another NGO, Plan International, and killed four of its staffers. Few days ago the police had defused an improvised explosive device aimed at targeting some CD centers here.
DAWN.COM | - NWFP | Three female education workers killed in Mansehra

 

[S-2]

God rest their souls and comfort the bereaved. This is awful.

I'm truly very sorry for these wonderful ladies and their driver and can't find the words to express my absolute venom for their cowardly assassins.

 

[Torpedo]

Unfortunately, they are killing the future of nation.

The effects of these attacks will be seen after 10-15 years.

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

thanks for your analysis, indian

 

[RescueRanger]

That report is inaccurate: Apparently the local police officials did not give out the correct info:

Here are the names of the deceased (1 female)

Anjum Zaib
Sadaf
Saifullah
Naeema Kosar

Link to source: Firing Rice International | The Pakistani Spectator

However this is not the first time NGO offices have been targeted in Mansehra: recently we had the case of the Plan International staff being attacked and last year the killing of a female NGO staff was linked to militants (only to discover that it was a honour killing by her family).

And in 2007 we saw the attack on the Red Cross office in Mansehra, where militants torched it to the ground near Karokorum Mor.

Here are the agencies operating in and around Mansehra that have either been attacked or threatened:

Care International
Mercy Corps
Red Cross
Hilla-e-Amer (Red Crescent – Yes even the red crescent, which is Pakistani)
GTZ
Plan International
Med Sans Frontier
World Vision

The Police did arrest a local Taliban leader called “Shakir”, shakir was the leader of a small, unknown group called: Lashkar-e-Ababeel, named after the tiny birds in the Quran, the birds are said to have defeated a 60,000 strong army that sought to destroy Mecca in the 7th Century.

However, despite his arrest he was “released” and to this day remains at large, there is no doubt that this Shakir fellow is engaging in attacks within the region, given his past links with AQN and the Taliban.

That being said Mansehra is a peaceful place, I recently went there in December 08 to train the civilian search and rescue team that is being supported by a German Organisation out of Abbottobad. At that time, the markets were fully of activity, with plenty of banks and CNG stations being built, and I was surprised to see a vary large collection of CD Shops and internet café's in such an area.

I have been informed that only a few months back that very market was bombed by the Taliban and shop keepers told to shut down their business or face their “wrath”... link: Bomb Blast in Masnsehra internet cafe

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

taleban are a bunch of wahhaby-wannabe cowards.

NGOs are there to help. The taleban only aim to destroy, break and kill.

 

[pacifist]

This is really condenmnable incident. Woman r playing great role in the development of nation as they comprise of 52% of population of Pakistan but some fanatic people are involved in such acts like harrasining the working women, killing etc.

 

[RescueRanger]

Mansehra education workers’ ‘killer’ arrested


MANSEHRA: Police have arrested the alleged assailant of the three female workers and a driver of a USAID-funded Project Rise International.

DAWN.COM | - NWFP | Three female education workers killed in Mansehra

 

[Blossom]

A dastardly act.Which Allah do they worship ,which Islam do they follow? that doesn't concede formal education for women.Who gave them the right to execute innocent people.
Honor Killing?? What is it? whats damaging their honor, their false pride?
The Fairer sex striving for what they deserve?Shame on these so called brave men.

 

[duhastmish]

the ground reality is - women are opressed in most islamic countries and - pakistan is falling in the same ditch.

this situation is getting out of hand and recently - all whats happening there is just getting worst.

and this gives a really bad name to pakistan, a country which had a female leader and president and was goign to have a female leader in face of BHUTTO last election!! is going through this , something is really messed up somewhere.

 

[Blossom]

An effort to oppress women.BB's murder was one such effort by those who thought it would be a full stop to women rise in every walks of life.blowing up girls schools, killing working women, executing them for no apparent reason in the name of honor or under the veil of religion.But the fact is its mere male chauvinism that leads them on to believe what they're doing is right and Islamic, to mistake felony for Jihad.

 

[duhastmish]

on a visul level Women are physically weaker to mean ( i oppose that they are weaker on all physical lvl because female are superior for mere fact that they can reproduce).
and these so called jihadi ( FASADI) are the mere reason why extremism should be wiped. they are just putting the veil of fake religion they are living.
The uneducated thrash dont ever know what islam is and these animals pretend to preach islam, to other sheeps.
In pakistan, i see the biggest failure of a government in world history. This is just insane but unfortunaly i dont see how it will be taken to its end.

 

[RescueRanger]

the ground reality is - women are opressed in most islamic countries and - pakistan is falling in the same ditch.

this situation is getting out of hand and recently - all whats happening there is just getting worst.

and this gives a really bad name to pakistan, a country which had a female leader and president and was goign to have a female leader in face of BHUTTO last election!! is going through this , something is really messed up somewhere.

That is a sweeping generalisation and you should not paint everything with a monochrome brush, Islam asks that man treat a women with care and respect. A decent Muslim man would not behave the way these people do, that is why we as decent Muslims state "They are not Muslim".

It is easy for someone with little or no understanding of the role of women in Islam to make statements and sweeping generalisations like the above, no matter how good hearted are un true and lead to even greater mis-understanding.

Need i remind you that the Prophet Mohammed's (PBUH) Wife was an independent businesswoman, who hired the prohpet to work for her so in fact he was her employee. And that was what how many centuries ago...

On the subject of women's our Founding Father Mohammed Ali Jinnah stated:

"I have always maintained that no nation can ever be worthy of its existence that cannot take its women along with the men. No struggle can ever succeed without women participating side by side with men. There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a great competition and rivalry between the two. There is a third power stronger than both, that of the women."
Speech at Islamia College for women
March 25, 1940

Take my family for example, my wife is working in a cellular company as a systems analyst, Two of my female cousins are Doctors in Pakistan Army and one is the executive director of a Multi National in Islamabad, my auntie is a female college governor in Bhakkar ( a very rural and traditional area of Pakistan) and my next door neighbour's daughter is the head of gender issues in Care Afghanistan/Pakistan.

Whilst such issues do exist in every developing country and generally the media tend to show the negative rather then the positive where Islam is concerned, the fact of the matter is that NO (Not all Muslim women are oppressed).

The people that are doing this probably are 5-10% of 166 Million People, so how can u judge an entire Religion that accounts for 19.2% of the world's population, let alone a country through the actions of a minority (albeit a rather disgusting one).

The fact that women like men can protest in the streets of Pakistan without any fear of persecution by religious or political bigots or any other nonsense is proof that women do have a very strong role in our society.

A picture says a thousand words, take these pictures for example:

Had that been a male protester, this is the reasoning he would have received from the police:

Women play a very important role in our society, as carers, as educations, as sisters, mothers, and wives. They are the foundation on which a strong nation is built, and regardless of what certiain people do and regardless of what certain elements may think, they have a crucial role in our nation, in our religion and in our societies.

The Educator:

The Carer:


The Peace Keeper

The Star Chaser

The Law Bringer



The Mother

 

[duhastmish]

^^^^^^ you forgot bhutto aswell,
anyways i am not making it generic. the thing is a few good men or cases dont make the whole nation.
Yes there are cases like the one's you reffeered and these are surely great.
one wome i saw in - this programme - dont tlel my mom - this women she help all the women who got acid thrown on their faces by their husband - she is odd one too.
but brother reality is that most women are still being opressed. and its a postive way to take bull by horn.
iagree with what you wrote but - dont under estimate the opression.

 

[RescueRanger]

^^^^^^ you forgot bhutto aswell,
anyways i am not making it generic. the thing is a few good men or cases dont make the whole nation.
Yes there are cases like the one's you reffeered and these are surely great.
one wome i saw in - this programme - dont tlel my mom - this women she help all the women who got acid thrown on their faces by their husband - she is odd one too.
but brother reality is that most women are still being opressed. and its a postive way to take bull by horn.
iagree with what you wrote but - dont under estimate the opression.

Friend,

Thank you but i disagree with your assessment that somehow all the women in Pakistan are being oppressed. If that were the case we would have no teachers, no doctors, no nurses, no police officers, no pilots, no soldiers, no lawyers, no judges, no researchers, no businesswomen.

So, sorry but i am going to disagree with that assessment that women in Islam need some sort of radical "emancipation" or relief similar to the suffrage movement.

It is a generalisation and i hope you can understand that Muslims are not the only ones who have received flak from media and HR activist for dealing with women in certain cases.

We know what happens to Indian women who are widowed and attempt to re-marry, especially in Rural India. Friend it is part and parcel of culture and has nothing to do with religion.

It can be eradicated but saying that the entire nation's women are being subdued based only on a few case studies is very wrong, if that were the case and the Indian scenario was applied you would have a lot of women without husbands sitting at home... Doing what exactly?