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37 muslim fanatics killed in Bangladesh

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DHAKA, (AFP) Bangladeshi police broke up a protest by tens of thousands of religious hardliners and shut down Islamist television stations Monday as 37 people died in some of the fiercest street violence for decades.

Hundreds more were injured in running battles as riot police broke up the rally near a commercial district in a pre-dawn raid in the capital Dhaka.

Dozens of demonstrators were also arrested, while the leader of the protests was put on a plane to the country’s second city Chittagong and the deputy chief was detained in the capital.

Hundreds of bankers and stock market traders had to sleep in their offices as the sound of gunfire echoed around Dhaka’s Motijheel Commercial Area through the night.

Shops and vehicles were set alight while the roads were littered with rocks that protesters had thrown at police, witnesses said.

Police said they used sound grenades, water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse at least 70,000 Islamists who were camped at Motijheel as part of a push for a blasphemy law.

“We were forced to act after they unlawfully continued their gathering at Motijheel. They attacked us with bricks, stones, rods and bamboo sticks,” Dhaka police spokesman Masudur Rahman told AFP.

The protesters dispersed early Monday, he added.

Bangladesh: Tricycles burn as police clash with muslim fanatics

Bangladesh: Tricycles burn as police clash with muslim fanatics

Bundled out:Bangladeshi police escort Hefajat-e-Islam movement veteran leader Allama Shah Ahmad Shafi (C) from a madrassa in Dhaka on May 6, 2013.

Bundled out:Bangladeshi police escort Hefajat-e-Islam movement veteran leader Allama Shah Ahmad Shafi (C) from a madrassa in Dhaka on May 6, 2013.

Mozammel Haq, a police inspector at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, told AFP that 11 bodies were brought to the clinic, including a policeman who had been hacked in the head with machetes.

A total of 26 other people were killed in the protests, according to an AFP toll compiled through police and medical officials.

This included eight people killed in the Kanchpur district on the outskirts of Dhaka, said the sources.

Violence also flared up at Hathazari, a town just outside Chittagong, where local police chief Liaqot Ali said at least five people were killed after several thousand Islamists clashed with police and border guards.

And at least two people were killed in the southern coastal district of Bagerhat where police exchanged gunfire with Islamists, police spokesman Shah Alam told AFP.

Two pro-Islamist television stations which broadcast footage of the raid on Motijheel were forced off the air, journalists at the channels said.

The plug was pulled on Diganta Television and Islamic TV as dozens of plain-clothes policemen stormed into their offices.

The violence erupted Sunday afternoon after police tried to break a blockade of highways leading into Dhaka.

The protests had been instigated by Allama Shah Ahmad Shafi, the leader of Hefajat-e-Islam who is said to be around 90 years old.

Police managed to persuade Shafi on Monday to leave his madrassa (religious school) in Dhaka, escorting him to the airport from where he was flown to Chittagong.

In a sign of their desire to avoid inflaming tensions, police insisted he was not arrested but left of his own volition.

Junayed Babu Nagori, the secretary general and second-ranked leader of the group, was arrested in the capital, Dhaka police spokesman Rahman told AFP.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has ruled out a blasphemy law, saying she will not cave into hardliners who accuse bloggers of insulting the Prophet Mohammed.

Chanting “Atheists must be hanged”, activists from Hefajat-e-Islam marched along at least six highways on Sunday, effectively cutting Dhaka off from the rest of the country.

Police said the number of protesters reached around 200,000 at one point although the numbers had dwindled by the early hours.

Social media networks were inundated with photos of bloodied Islamists lying on the streets after the crackdown.

The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which backed Hefajat’s blockade, accused the government of “killing hundreds of people and concealing the bodies” but gave no proof.

Fearing more violence, Dhaka police banned all protests and the carrying of firearms.

Bangladesh, an officially secular country with a 90 percent Muslim population, has seen a surge in violence since the start of the year, when a court began handing down war crimes verdicts related to the 1971 independence conflict.

Three leading Islamists have so far been convicted for their role in mass killings during the conflict, which saw what was then East Pakistan break from the regime in Islamabad.

The overall death toll in violence between religious hardliners and the police since January now stands at around 150.

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Posted in Nigeria News. A DisNaija.Com network.

Source: PM News

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Nigeria News

Kano Transfers Over 1,000 Almajiris To Different States Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic

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The Kano State Government on Saturday said it has transferred 1,098 ‘almajiris’ to different states of the country.

The commissioner for local government, Murtala Garo, disclosed this while presenting a report before the state’s task force on COVID-19 at the government house, Kano.

Almajiris are children who are supposed to be learning Islamic studies while living with their Islamic teachers. Majority of them, however, end up begging on the streets of Northern Nigeria. They constitute a large number of Nigeria’s over 10 million out-of-school children.

Mr Garo said the Kano government transported 419 almajiris to Katsina, 524 to Jigawa and 155 to Kaduna. He said all of them tested negative for coronavirus before leaving the Kano State.

Despite the coronavirus test done in Kano for the almajiris, the Jigawa government earlier said it would quarantine for two weeks all the almajiris that recently arrived from Kano.

Mr Garo said another 100 almajiris scheduled to be taken to Bauchi State also tested negative to COVID-19.

In a remark, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje said the COVID-19 situation in Kano was getting worse. He appealed for a collaborative effort to curtail the spread of the virus in the state.

Mr Ganduje, who commended residents for complying with the lockdown imposed in the state, said the decision was taken to halt the spread of the virus.

Kano State, as of Saturday night, has 77 coronavirus cases, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.

The decision to transfer the Kano almajiris is part of the agreement reached between Northern governors that almajiris in each state be transferred to their states of origin.

However, even before the latest agreement by the governors, the Kano government had been transferring almajiris to other states and neighbouring countries after it banned street begging in the state, most populous in Northern Nigeria.

Despite the transfers, however, no concrete step has been taken to ensure such children do not return to Kano streets as there is freedom of movement across Nigeria although interstate travel was recently banned to check the spread of the coronavirus.

 

Sourced From: Premium Times Nigeria

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Nigeria News

COVID-19: ‘Bakassi Boys’ Foil Attempt To Smuggle 24 Women Into Abia In Container

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By Ugochukwu Alaribe

Operatives of the Abia State Vigilante Service, AVS, popularly known as ‘Bakassi Boys’ have arrested 24 market women hidden in a container truck, at Ekwereazu Ngwa, the boundary community between Abia and Akwa Ibom states.

The market women, said to be  from Akwa Ibom State, were on their way to Aba, when they were arrested with the truck driver and two of his conductors for violating the lockdown order by the state government.

Driver of the truck, Moses Asuquo, claimed he was going to Aba to purchase stock fish, but decided to assist the market women, because they were stranded.

A vigilante source told Sunday Vanguard that the vehicle was impounded while the market women were sent back to Akwa Ibom State.

Commissioner for Home Land Security, Prince Dan Okoli, who confirmed the incident, said that  smuggling of people into the state poses great threat to the state government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID- 19.

 

Sourced From: Vanguard News

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Nigeria News

Woman Kills Her Maid Over Salary Request

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Operatives of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Yaba of the Lagos State police command have arrested one Mrs Nene Steve for allegedly killing her maid, Joy Adole

The maid was allegedly beaten to death by Nene for requesting for her salary at their residence located at 18, Ogundola Street, Bariga area in Lagos.

Narrating the incident, Philips Ejeh, an elder brother to the deceased said that he was sad when they informed him that his sister was beaten to death.

He explained that the deceased was an indigene of Benue State brought to Lagos through an agent and started working with her as a maid  in January 2020.

‘’She reported that her boss refused to pay her and anytime she asked for her salary she will start beating her.

She was making an attempt to leave the place but due to the total lockdown she remained there until Sunday when her boss said she caught her stealing noodles and this led to her serious beating and death,’’ Ejeh said.

He called on Lagos State Government and well- meaning people in the country to help them in getting justice for the victim.

The police spokesman, Bala Elkana, stated that the woman and her husband came to Bariga Police  Station to a report that their house girl had committed suicide.

Detectives were said to have visited the house and suspected foul play with the position of the rope and bruises all over the body which confirmed that the girl had been tortured to death and the boss decided to hang up the girl to make it look like suicide.

He said: “The police moved on with their investigation and found a lot of sign of violence on her body that she has been tortured before a rope was put on her neck.’’

He added that the police removed the corpse and deposited it in the mortuary for autopsy to further ascertain the cause of the death.

Elkana said the matter has been transferred from Bariga police station to Panti for further investigation while the couple have been arrested and will be charged to court.

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Boko Haram Attacks: Buhari Summons Urgent Meeting Of Service Chiefs

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President Buhari and the Service Chiefs in a meeting. (File photo)

Ostensibly alarmed by the latest killings of dozens of soldiers by Boko Haram insurgents, President Muhammadu Buhari has summoned an urgent meeting of Service Chiefs to find ways to stop the trend. 

He has also dispatched the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali, to the neighbouring Republic of Chad for an urgent meeting with President Idris Deby and his defence counterpart. 

Knowledgeable sources said in Abuja on Friday that the president is worried by on the deterioration of security situation on the Nigeria – Chad Border that has led to the recently increased Boko Haram terrorism in the area.

The sources which did not want to be named in Abuja said: “Nigeria has a Chad  problem in the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) put together to secure the Lake Chad basin areas and repeal the Boko Haram terrorist attacks against all the countries neighbouring the Lake.”

The sources noted that Chad is believed to be having their own internal security challenges and this has reportedly led to their pulling away their own troops manning their own border around Lake Chad,  saying: “That lacuna is being exploited by the Boko Haram terrorists, who go in and out of Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon to launch terrorist acts.  This is a clear illustration of the fact that terrorism is beyond national borders.”

When contacted, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, confirmed that the Defence Minister is going to Chad but said he is unaware of the purpose. 

Meanwhile, the military authorities are said to be in the process of identifying the families of the latest victims with a view to making contact with them. 

Credible sources revealed that it is the reason the president is yet to make any pronouncement on the matter. 

“The President has called an urgent meeting with the Service Chiefs, as well as the fact that families of the latest victims of the Boko Haram are being identified and contacts made before a government pronouncement on the tragic attacks. This, it is understood, is the reason for the silence of the government over the incident,” the source said. 

 

Sourced From: Tribune

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