Several cities in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan have been scenes of heavy clashes between people and security forces with at least one 12-year-old boy reportedly shot dead.
Videos posted on social media show large crowds of people on the streets of the cities of Saravan and Iranshahr as well as provincial capital Zahedan, whose residents have witnessed another bloody Friday as security forces once again opened fire on protesters who were chanting "Death to Khamenei" on the streets after the Friday prayers.
Eyewitnesses say at least two dead bodies were taken inside the Makki Grand Mosque, where the top Sunni cleric of the province, Molavi Abdolhamid, delivered his Friday prayer sermons, urging people to control their sentiments. However, the citizens of the city held a protest rally after the prayers and chanted antigovernment slogans.
As seen in videos posted on social media, a 12-year-old boy was killed after a live bullet by the regime’s agents hit him on the head.
Dismissing the scenarios that the Islamic Republic has used to justify its clampdown on the antigovernment protests and trying to portray them as separatist movements, people of Zahedan chanted slogans such as "From Zahedan to Tehran, I sacrifice my life for Iran."
As confirmed by global internet watchdog, NetBlocks, Internet has been shut down in the city as it was during the Bloody Friday on September 30 when security forces killed at least 93 people, and injured hundreds more.
Fierce clashes occurred in Zahedan and several other cities of the province on Friday between protesters and security forces. People in the province have been holding protests on a regular basis since the nationwide protests began after the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, but the demonstrations have been intensified since the Bloody Friday.
As an apparent attempt to calm the situation in the city, authorities announced that the police chief and the head of a police station near where dozens of people were killed during the tragic event have been sacked, State news agency IRNA said on Thursday.
Sistan and Baluchestan is one of the few Sunni-majority provinces in predominantly Shiite Iran. Zahedan, close to Iran's southeastern border with Pakistan and Afghanistan, is home to a Baluch minority estimated to number up to two million people which have faced discrimination and repression for decades, according to human rights groups.
Earlier in the month, Molavi Abdolhamid, the religious leader of Iran’s Sunni Baluch population, blamed Iran's ruler Ali Khamenei for the Bloody Friday killings and called for accountability.
On Tuesday, October 25, an IRGC Colonel, identified as Mehdi Mollashahi, and Javad Keikha a member of the Salman Brigade which belongs to IRGC's Basij paramilitary forces, were killed when gunmen opened fire at them from a car and fled.