Jalriz survivors have no easy path when seeking justice

Jalriz district of Maidan Wardak province survivors called for serious follow-up of Maidan Wardak incident by government.

A number of Bamyan inhabitants and relatives of the Jalriz victims criticized the security officials of Maidan Wardak who did not helped the killed soldiers on time.

They claimed that the Jalriz incident was conducted with support of some circles; adding formation of a find-fact commission would have no result because the members of the commission have also played role in the incident.

“The fact-finding commission is one the supports of the incident, those who are in the commission are involve in the incident,” Ishaq Mahdi, Afghan reporter said.

Hundreds of Taliban fighters launched a raid on several checkposts manned by local police in the Jalriz district of eastern Wardak province few days ago, triggering a battle that lasted around 24 hours.

Around 23 Afghan Local Police — a militia hired and controlled by the government — were killed, officials said, with some of the dead bodies decapitated.

President Ashraf Ghani termed the killings a “war crime” and called for an investigation, according to a statement issued from his office.

“War is an unpleasant fact, but such behavior can never be tolerated, and this cowardly act of enemies of Afghanistan” the President said, “is against all principles of war and equals to war crime.”

President Ghani stated that no canons or treaties, either domestic or international allow disrespecting corpses and the holy religion of Islam strictly prohibits such acts.

President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani offers his heartfelt condolences and sympathies to the families of the victims and wishes the Almighty gives them patience at this difficult time.

Hundreds of fresh forces who arrived in Jalrez took back territory lost to the insurgents, but the families of the victims — all from the Hazara ethnic minority — said the government had failed to provide ammunition and reinforcements in time.

“It is all because of the government’s negligence, there were a lot of police and army checkposts around Jalrez but nobody cared. The government is responsible for their deaths,” Mohammad Aref, the nephew of one of the fallen commanders said.

He said his uncle, Mohammed, also known as Sia, was in touch with his family right before he died.

“In his last call he told us that he had only seven bullets left, he said goodbye and hung up. We never heard from him again.”

In Kabul over the weekend, several hundred people protested against the government’s handling of the incident, which prominent Hazara politician Mohammad Mohaqiq, second vice for executive directorate of the government called a “catastrophe.”

The Jalrez raid was the latest in a series of brazen Taliban attacks since the group began their annual spring offensive in April.

Fighting on multiple fronts and facing record casualties, Afghan forces totaling 350,000 are struggling to rein in militants following the end of NATO’s combat mission last December.