Khooni Chowk

Chilling nickname for a town square in Mingora, Pakistan, where Taliban militants dump the bodies of their victims. (Khooni means bloody, Chowk means square. The square is also known as ChowkZebahkhana – Zebahkhana means slaughterhouse.)

On January 8, Zubair Torwali wrote in The News International:

Mingora, has now virtually fallen to the militants. The police are escorted by army officials and come out from their “hide-outs” only for a couple of hours. One of the busiest squares, Grain chowk, was renamed by the shopkeepers as Khooni chowk because when they come to their shops in the morning on each day they find four or five dead bodies hung over the poles or the trees. They see dead bodies scattered along the foot path in the morning. The bodies are usually headless.

More recently, The Guardian reported:

During one week this month, 27 bodies were dumped overnight in a square in the centre of Mingora, which has been dubbedSlaughterhouse Square.

Mingora is located in Swat, a region in Pakistan once renowned for its beauty.