How Soldiers Killed My 3 Sons,32 Of My Followers In Zaria..Sheik El-Zazzaky

Leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, otherwise known as Shiite, Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zazzaky, yesterday alleged that 35 of his members, including his three biological sons, were killed by soldiers on Friday. El-Zazzaky said this at a press conference he addressed in Zaria.

A fight had broken out on Friday in Zaria between the Shiite group and soldiers. This followed a procession by the group said to be organised to mark this year's “Quds” day, which caused a serious gridlock on a major road. Army sources said a military convoy passing the area was delayed for over 30 minutes in the traffic jam. When a way was eventually created for the convoy to pass, the military said, somebody opened fire on it from the crowd of protesters, resulting in an exchange of fire, which claimed casualties on the side of the sect members.
But addressing a news conference yesterday in Zaria, the second biggest city in Kaduna State, El-Zazzaky said as at Friday he had 16 corpses of his members in his custody while nine other corpses were taken to the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital. He further alleged that some soldiers who were passing by killed three people at the Hussainiya headquarters of the movement.

El-Zazzaky said, “One of my sons, Mahmud, a student of Almustapha University, Beirut, was shot at the abdomen and (he) started bleeding. We tried to rush him to the hospital but the soldiers blocked everywhere along the way and he bled to death.

“The soldiers also arrested some of our members, including three of my sons. They were taken alive and (they) later killed two of them. They include Ahmad, a Chemical Engineering student at Shenyang University, China; Hamid, an Aeronautical Engineering student at Xian University, China; while Ali is still alive but wounded on the leg.

“When we demanded for the release of our people the Army refused, saying that they would take them to Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital for medication, not knowing that the two were killed.”
It was learnt that the sect members, who had on that fateful day trooped out in large numbers for the procession, blocked a lane on a major road, causing a heavy traffic gridlock.

Sources said the soldiers, who were in a convoy with a senior military officer, had demanded to be allowed to pass but the sect members refused to grant them passage through the procession. In an attempt to create a space to pass, the soldiers were said to have been pelted with stones and they responded by firing shots in the air to disperse the marchers.

The defence Headquarters said in a statement on Friday in Abuja by its spokesman, Major General Chris Olukolade, that the convoy of soldiers who were escorting the Commanding Officer 11, Field Engineers Regiment, Basawa, Zaria, was held up in the traffic caused by the Shiite procession.
Olukolade said the incident was being investigated.

The Director of Army Public Relations (DAPR), Brigadier-General Olajide Laleye, has said the Nigerian Army was not the aggressor in the incident, adding that the situation is being investigated.
Laleye said the troops had responded to attack from the Islamic group to defend themselves from people who opened fire on the convoy from among the protesters.

He said, “What we will like you to know is that the Army did not open fire. Some people from the group initiated the firing and the Army only responded.

“So we are investigating what happened in Zaria. How come that there were arms and ammunition within the group? Who did the firing and exactly what transpired when they initiated that firing.”

Meanwhile, sources within the military are trying to create a link between the attack on Buhari and Bauchi on Wednesday and last Friday’s clash in Zaria between the Islamic group and the military in which the son of the group’s leader, El-Zakzaky, Mahmud, was reportedly killed with other members of the sect.

An officer who did not want to be quoted said he found the clash in Zaria strange “because Zakzaky is against Boko Haram. So there is a feeling that some people were planted there to create this confusion.”
He said the security men were rattled by the shooting from the procession, stressing that it was “the exchange of fire that resulted in the death. The military were even shocked that somebody could shoot from within the crowd, which is so strange. This group is totally against Boko Haram.”