Clashes erupt in Kabul over attempt to rebury former king
KABUL – An Afghan official says clashes over an attempt by members of Afghanistan’s Tajik community to rebury a former king slain almost 90 years ago have killed a security guard and wounded three people.
King Habibullah Kalakani, a Tajik, was deposed and killed in 1929 by King Nader Shah, an ethnic Pashtun. For 87 years his body has lain in an unmarked grave in the Afghan capital.
Tajik activists exhumed Kalakani’s body on Thursday, hoping to hold an official funeral and rebury him on a hill in Kabul.
But Vice-President Abdul Rashid Dostum’s guards barred Kalakani’s reburial and clashes broke out. Dostum is ethnically Uzbek, and his supporters argue the hill belongs to Afghanistan’s Uzbeks.
Dostum’s adviser, Bashir Ahmad Tahyang, says a guard was killed and three people were wounded.
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