NZ PM orders most powerful probe into mosques attacks
| Date :26-Mar-2019 |
WELLINGTON,
NEW Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday ordered an independent judicial inquiry into whether police and intelligence services could have prevented the Christchurch mosque attacks on March 15. Ardern said a royal commission -- the most powerful judicial probe available under New Zealand law -- was needed to find out how a gunman was able to kill 50 people in an attack that shocked the world. “It is important that no stone is left unturned to get to how this act of terrorism occurred and how we could have stopped it,” she told reporters. New Zealand’s spy agencies have faced criticism in wake of the attack for concentrating on the threat from Islamic extremism. Instead, the victims were all Muslims and the massacre was allegedly carried out by a white supremacist fixated on the belief that there was an Islamist plot to “invade” Western countries. “One question we need to answer is whether or not we could or should have known more,” Ardern said. “New Zealand is not a surveillance state ... But questions need to be answered.”
Kerala woman laid to rest
THRISSUR,
THE body of a 27-year-old woman from Kerala, who was among the 50 people killed in a terror attack in New Zealand, was brought to the State on Monday and laid to rest. Prayers were held at Cheraman Juma mosque at Kodungallor before the body of the woman, Ancia Alibava, was laid to rest. Police sources at Kodungallor said the last rites were held at the mosque around 11 am.