Jalalabad,<\/p>\n
Grief mixed with anger among Afghanistan\u2019s minority Sikh and Hindu community on Monday as they prepared for funerals of loved ones, including an election candidate, killed in a suicide attack.<\/p>\n
At least 19 people were killed and 21 wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of Afghan Sikhs and Hindus waiting to meet President Ashraf Ghani in the eastern city of Jalalabad yesterday.<\/p>\n
Scores of mourners shouted \u201cdeath to Ashraf Ghani\u201d and \u201cdeath to the government\u201d as they placed coffins in ambulances that would take them to a temple for funeral ceremonies.<\/p>\n
Among the dead were 17 Sikhs and Hindus, officials said, including Avtar Singh, the only Sikh candidate running in the October 20 legislative elections, and Rawail Singh, a prominent social activist.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis attack has killed many of our elders, those who loved their country more than anything else,\u201d Narendar Singh told AFP as he took the body of his father, Avtar Singh, from the hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were the direct target. The government really does not care about us. We used to be a huge community but most of us have left.\u201d Around 1,000 Sikhs and Hindus are estimated to reside in what is otherwise an overwhelmingly Muslim nation.<\/p>\n
The vast majority live in Jalalabad as well as the southeastern city of Ghazni and the Afghan capital Kabul.<\/p>\n
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest carried out by the militants in the restive province where they have a foothold.<\/p>\n
Ghani was in Jalalabad on Sunday as part of a two-day visit to the province. He was not harmed.<\/p>\n
Singh said a group of 20 Sikhs and Hindus had planned to meet with Ghani in the morning at the provincial governor\u2019s compound but the meeting was postponed until the afternoon.<\/p>\n
As their convoy neared the compound, they were stopped by security forces and ordered to get out of their cars to be checked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is when a suicide bomber on foot detonated among us,\u201d Singh said.<\/p>\n
Jagandar Singh, who lost his brother in the attack, said the mourners would consider taking to \u201cthe streets in Kabul\u201d to express their anger at the government\u2019s inability to protect civilians.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have lost hope with this government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jalalabad, Grief mixed with anger among Afghanistan\u2019s minority Sikh and Hindu community on Monday as they prepared for funerals of loved ones, including an election candidate, killed in a suicide attack. At least 19 people were killed and 21 wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of Afghan Sikhs and Hindus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36004,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36003"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36005,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36003\/revisions\/36005"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}