Govt given 10 days to arrest Shujai

HERAT CITY (PAN): Hundreds of people attended a gathering in western Herat province on Sunday and asked the government to arrest a notorious criminal, Hakimullah Shujai.

Shujai, a resident of southern Ghazni province, has allegedly killed 121 people and injured hundreds others in the Khas Uruzgan district of central Uruzgan province.

The gathering in Herat City asked the government to arrest Shujai and bring him to justice.

The gathering was organized by a civil society, to bring together tribal elders and members of affected families from Uruzgan and southern Kandahar provinces.

Mohammad Daud Dawar, who leads the group in Herat, said Shujai should be arrested and punished.

Shujai killed 121 civilians and wounded hundreds others and torched their homes in Uruzgan and Kandahar, said Abdul Baqi Kher, who spoke on behalf of Uruzgan residents.

He said they had shown President Hamid Karzai photos of those killed by Shujai, but the wanted man continued to be on the loose.

The gathering announced if the government did not arrest Shujai over the next 10 days, they would launch nationwide protests.

The Ministry of Interior says it has directed the police to arrest Shujai.

Participants of the gathering also claimed police had once arrested Shujai, but released him on the directives of one of Karzai’s deputies.

They called Shujai a war criminal, asking the Afghan government, the UN and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission to bring him to justice.

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