PAKISTAN : 50,000 at rites for man who died in German jail
5/14/2006
SAROKI, Pakistan (AP) - More than 50,000 people attended the funeral Saturday of a Pakistani student who died while under arrest in Germany for allegedly planning to attack a newspaper that published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
About three dozen people were injured in a stampede when crowds tried to enter the family's home in the Pakistani village of Saroki to see Amer Cheema's face, police said.
German police say Cheema, 28, hanged himself May 3 in his Berlin prison cell using a noose made from his clothes. But Cheema's sister, Kishwar Zuhair, on Friday dismissed the German claim.
Cheema was arrested March 20 as he tried to enter the Berlin office of Axel Springer, the publisher of Die Welt. He was allegedly armed with a knife.
5/14/2006
SAROKI, Pakistan (AP) - More than 50,000 people attended the funeral Saturday of a Pakistani student who died while under arrest in Germany for allegedly planning to attack a newspaper that published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
About three dozen people were injured in a stampede when crowds tried to enter the family's home in the Pakistani village of Saroki to see Amer Cheema's face, police said.
German police say Cheema, 28, hanged himself May 3 in his Berlin prison cell using a noose made from his clothes. But Cheema's sister, Kishwar Zuhair, on Friday dismissed the German claim.
Cheema was arrested March 20 as he tried to enter the Berlin office of Axel Springer, the publisher of Die Welt. He was allegedly armed with a knife.
The funeral of failed murderers ought to be an affair where the cortège slinks out in the dead of the night cringing at the embarrassment of meeting anyone. Not affairs where 50,000 turn out, a figure that might be on the lower side as there are suggestions in the that as many as 200,000 turned out.
The subsequent action of the Government of Pakistan reinforces the view that deviant behaviour is tolerated in Pakistan. Establishing whether this failed murderer committed suicide or not could have just as well been established without the public drama of summoning the German Ambassador :
Pakistan summons German envoy over Pakistani death in custody
Further it is an un-edifying spectacle to see Pakistan’s Parliamentarians support a failed murderer :
PAKISTAN: CALL TO SEVER TIES WITH GERMANY
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