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KABUL (PAN): Hundreds of people on Friday offered funeral prayers in absentia for nearly 5,000 Afghans massacred during the Soviet-backed communist regime, asking the government to bring the perpetrators to justice.
On Sunday, President Hamid Karzai decided condolence ceremonies would be held on September 30 at all mosques across the country in remembrance of the people killed during the communist regime.
Earlier in the month, the Netherlands government released a list of the 5,000 Afghans killed 35 years ago. The list was prepared on the basis of information provided by an Afghan refugee, Amanullah.
Dr. Saboor Fakhri, the Jamiat-i-Islah president, expressed his condolences to the martyrs’ families. He said the victims’ relatives should be proud of the ultimate sacrifice rendered by their near and dear ones.
He added the communists, who sought to eliminate thousands of innocent people and weaken the Islamic system, could not achieve their goal and had their regime removed as a result of popular resistance.
Fakhri, whose father was among those mown down, alleged the individuals responsible for the mass killings were still at large. He called for bringing the killers to justice, saying their inclusion in different departments was a betrayal of the martyrs’ blood.
Maulana Abdul Saboor, another leader of the group whose father was also martyred during the turbulent phase of Afghanistan’s history, sought strict action over the extrajudicial killings. He claimed the number of victims was much higher, blaming the communists for 57,000 deaths.
Also a member of the Jamiat-i-Islah, Maulvi Abdul Salam Abid declared killers of the massacre perpetrators would be holy warriors. The government should prosecute the communists who still defended their heinous acts, he demanded.
In a declaration, the participants called for putting remnants of the communist regime on the exit control list and prosecuting the mass killers to prevent the country's possible slide into a new civil conflict.
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