MUHAMMAD AKRAM climbed on to the back of his grandson's motorcycle to go home for lunch, not knowing he had just minutes to live. The pair rode through the streets of Nawabshah in Pakistan where the Sydney grandfather had spent much of his life. As they parked under a tree, a motorcycle approached. One of two men, his face covered by cloth, put the gun close to Mr Akram's back and fired.
This was the first assassination of an Australian Ahmadi Muslim, say Mr Akram's family. The killing was religiously motivated, says the Ahmadiyya community in Pakistan.
Some Muslims regard Ahmadis as heretical and their persecution by Sunni Muslim extremists is as old as Pakistan.
In Australia immigrant people can create new lives, but their old countries - be they Britain, China or Pakistan - pull people back to relatives, friends and lives never fully left behind, even when, like Mr Akram, they left as refugees. Sometimes tragedy results, in Mr Akram's case a killing hatched within a web of local and international politics. The extremists who persecute Ahmadis have links to terrorist organisations there, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, including al-Qaeda.
Having joined his Sydney-based family in Claremont Meadows, near Penrith, seven years ago as a refugee, friends and family counselled caution on his return to Pakistan. He went to attend a family wedding and visit his home town, Nawabshah, also known as Benazirabad, where two of his children remain.
And so he came to be riding home on Wednesday, February 29. The bullet pierced a kidney. His grandson Muneeb Ahmed held him and yelled at the fleeing attackers. As he died, aged 78, Muneeb also fell. The bullet had passed through his grandfather and struck him. The 18-year-old lived, after four hours of surgery.
Mr Akram's family in Sydney soon heard the news and saw images of his face and body via a web cam. Six shocked relatives flew out within a day for the funeral last Saturday. (click here for more)
No comments:
Post a Comment