The clandestine operation has left 34 unarmed civilians dead including 3 undergraduate sons of Sheikh Zakzaky, Ahmad, Hamid and Mahmoud. Many of the victims were killed in cold blood. During the attack, Shahid Mahmoud Zakzaky was shot at the spot but was still breathing. In the quest for medical care, all the routes leading to the hospital were blocked by the soldiers. There, he gave up the ghost.
Before his martyrdom, he was a student of Al-Mustafa International University, Beirut where he studied Islamic Studies. Also, he initiated a website (imnig.org) where Sheikh Zakzaky's lectures went online and articles discussing good governance, Islamic reawakening and justice for humanity were published.
Ahmad, Hamid, Ali Zakzaky and other brothers were whisked away by the soldiers to Basawa barracks and tortured to death. Though, Ali survived with gunshots and a fractured leg. But an irony of life is Ali was killed by the same Nigerian soldiers under the command of the Nigerian Chief of Army Staff Maj. Gen TY Buratai last year during the crackdown on members of the Islamic movement on December12.
Ahmad Zakzaky, 24, a student of Chemical Engineering at Shenyang University, China, was expected to graduate in April 2015 but the cruel members of the murderous Army dashed his hope. He was electrocuted, tortured and shot to death by the same soldiers at Basawa Barracks Zaria and his body disposed to Ahmadu Bello Teaching Hospital, Shika. Nevertheless, his Brother Hamid Zakzaky, 22, was a first-year student of Aeronautical Engineering at Xian University of Technology, China, experienced the same brutality with his brothers. Before, proceeding to China for studies he was engaged in craftsmanship. He arrived home on Saturday July19, and was killed 5 days after in cold blood.
Meanwhile, Mr. Julius Anyanwu, 66, a Christian who owns a carpentry workshop was also shot dead. His only sin was asking them the reason for shooting the peaceful protesters.On July26, a day after, the Nigerian military attacked Hussainiyya Baqiyatullah where they killed two more people. All the corpses were buried according to Islamic rites in Jannatu Darur Rahma cemetery where martyrs of the movement are buried but it was demolished by Kaduna state government during its recent clampdown.
In the aftermath of the massacre, the atrocities of the military has attracted local and international condemnation from individuals, CSOs, religious bodies, clerics, and media personalities among others.In a bid to remember and immortalize these fallen heroes, the Islamic movement in Nigeria under the leadership of his eminence Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky has opened its maiden Annual International Quds Day and exhibition, last year. It was first of its sort in Africa. It was marked in Nigeria's capital, featuring pro-Palestinian figures.
Mahdi Garba is a Nigerian journalist, human rights activist, social commentator and writer. He covers the activities of the Nigeria's Islamic movement for Rasa News Agency, Iran. He is working on his forthcoming book 'Tears of 12 December' a memoir on the Zaria massacre.