A SIX-year-old boy was beheaded with a piece of broken glass in front of his screaming mum, fueling speculations that he could have been a sectarian and hate crime victim, media reports said.
Shia Rights Watch said that “in an unprecedented incident” the child, identified as Zakariya Bader al-Jabir, was brutally killed in Saudi Arabia after he was confirmed to be a Shia Muslim. In a press release on the boy’s death, it said that the “unknown man” had asked the mother if she was Shia when they arrived at the shrine, and “the woman said ‘yes’.”
TMV, which has posted footage of the murdered boy’s funeral on its website, said he was killed in broad daylight in the city of Medina last Thursday.
The killer repeatedly stabbed Zakariya in the neck with a piece of broken glass until he was beheaded, witness accounts of the gruesome killing said.
The child and his mother were reportedly attacked by the apparently sole assailant while they were on their way to visit the shrine of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon Him).
The group added “There was no intervention from anyone and no response from authority thus far.”
The killing of a six-year-old boy in broad daylight in Saudi Arabia has generated a wave of shock and revulsion and drawn attention to the brutal nature of Wahhabi school of thought which governs the kingdom.
The group said that Saudi Shia “have been under a military crackdown by their government and many Shia activitists are in prisons and [sentenced to] death”. “The community also reported this incident is a result of ongoing violations and lack of protection by the Saudi authority toward its Shia population.”
Source: Websites
