Pakdasht Murders

Potkin Azarmehr

Iran these days is witnessing a gruesome court trial of two hideous child killers. The child victims are all from the poor slums of Pakdasht, where the majority of its poor inhabitants toil in the harsh unpleasant brick baking factories. 

The accused dubbed by the Iranian press as “hyenas of Pakdasht”, have been charged with killing and raping 17 children, two men and a woman in the desert south of Tehran.

Today the trial had to be halted after relatives of the victims made a furious attempt to attack one of the accused as he calmly confessed to the gory details of his crimes.

Saying how he was delighted when he saw the blood of his victims oozing from their bodies. 

The two charged with the murders stunned their victims by hitting them with a stone or a blunt object first then raped them before finally burning the bodies. 

But the relatives’ rage is not just directed at these two callous murderers and their horrific confessions. They also accuse the Law Enforcement Forces with complacency and not caring so much for the children who came from poor families. There are also suspicions that the accused killed their victims to obtain their body parts for a more sophisticated organised gang with influential contacts behind the scenes.

The father of one of the victims, known only as Milad A., told ISNA reporters, “My family and the families of two other victims became suspicious of one of those charged and handed him over to the Law Enforcement Forces, the LEF's claim that they arrested him is not true, it was us who arrested him, but the culprit was released after a bail for 1000Million Rials was paid for him.  Who was behind paying that substantial bail money?  We are not happy with just these two being sentenced to death. We want to trace the big hands behind these two. We suspect our children were killed for the sale of their body parts.” 

Another relative told reporters how when his child went missing he reported the matter to the authorities but three days after, there was not even a call from the authorities to say who is in charge of the case or simply ask them if their child has turned up. “The police did not contact us at all, we had to go to them again and find out what they are doing about our missing child.” 

 Another two relatives also mocked the reprisal compensation money they had received by the orders of president Khatami, one figure was at 5 Million Rials and another at 2 Million (around $600and $240). “We don’t want this money, we want all those responsible to be punished”. 

Twenty five years after Khomeini’s promises of Islamic Utopia, the country is sinking deeper and deeper into a depraved and degenerate society with little morality. Those ignorant enough to be fooled by the Islamic Republic propagandists and their portrayal of a harmonious and just Islamic society should be made aware of these realities. In fact the Islamic utopia has not worked anywhere.