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An injured student walks away after police opened fire on students
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KABUL,
November 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Afghan students
protesting against poor university conditions and police handling of
an earlier uprising which left at least two dead gathered for a third
day in Kabul Wednesday, November 13.
Around
2,000 students initially assembled outside the gates of Kabul
university, refusing to attend lessons until their demands for
improved accommodation and justice for those who died were met, Agence
France-Presse (AFP) reported.
State
media said two people were killed by police in a protest on Monday,
November 11, as 3,000 rock-throwing students vented anger at living in
dormitories without food, electricity or water.
A
second day of protest Tuesday, November 12, turned to chaos as riot
police opened fire on gathered crowds, leading to running battles
across the campus.
Students
say at least seven students were killed in the two days of unrest and
around 40 injured when police opened fire on several thousand students
in the Afghan capital.
Wednesday’s
demonstration appeared more muted with many students apparently
mollified by government pledges to improve conditions and investigate
the police handling of the situation, AFP reported.
Large
numbers of police were again present on campus and were reported to be
blocking access to the campus.
After
an initial gathering, many students began dispersing, although a
hardcore of protesters remained to press home their demands.
A
spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) which
patrols Kabul said the peacekeeping body had received no calls from
the Afghan government to assist in controlling the situation.
Some
residents of a university dormitory at the centre of the dispute were
said to have packed their bags and left for home.
“The
university should be closed because if we start going to classes then
the government will do nothing about those people who have died and
the killers will not be brought to justice,” said third year student
Anwar.
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| Afghan students march through a police cordon during the protest |
Gul
Rahman, a second year student, added: “Losing a week or two in
lessons is nothing, we can always get them back. Losing these people
is a big deal, they can never be returned to us.”
But
Abdul Jabar Sadiqi, another student, said lessons should begin again
as the protests were futile.
“We
should go back to university to start our classes because with
protests and demonstrations we will get nothing. The government is
ready to listen to all our problems and negotiate.”
The
demonstrations come exactly a year after the fall of the Taliban
regime by a U.S.-led military coalition.
Meanwhile,
a military statement said Wednesday that U.S. forces hunting Al-Qaeda
and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan scrambled two aircraft after a
rocket attack on an outpost in southeastern Afghanistan.
The
statement said two A-10 aircraft were dispatched from Bagram air base,
a U.S.-dominated facility north of Kabul, to investigate rockets fired
on an outpost in Gardez, the capital of Paktia province, which borders
Pakistan.
There
was no damage or injuries in the attack and the aircraft were unable
to find those responsible, the statement said.
Rocket
attacks on coalition outposts across Afghanistan have occurred
frequently during the year-long military campaign, but few hit their
target.
Last
weekend one base in the southeastern province of Khost came under fire
from up to 15 rockets in what the U.S. military said was an unusually
well-coordinated assault. There were no injuries.
According
to Wednesday’s statement, U.S. troops also discovered a cache of 57
122mm rockets in the remote Koh-i-Safi area of northeastern
Afghanistan, close to the Pakistan frontier. It said the weapons would
be destroyed.
