Jahrom, Qanats

In the first months of the 1979 revolution, a group led by Ali Mohammad Besharati Jahromi, one of the founders of the IRGC, and Hossein Ayatollahi, Friday Prayer Leader of Jahrom, formed a group who kidnapped and tortured political dissidents. They killed and mutilated them in the Behesht-e Rezvan Mortuary next to Shahzadeh Abolfazl Imamzadeh. Besides supporters of Baha’i and other opposition political groups, there was also a prostitute and a homosexual among the victims.

Since this group disposed of the corpses by throwing them into unused qanats (underground irrigation channels) in farmland near Jahrom, local residents know the group as the Qanat Group. The practice stopped after families discovered the bodies of their relatives in the qanats. Other bodies are believed to still lie undiscovered in the qanats which, due to expansion of urban construction, are now located in the middle of Fatemieh Town and Farhangshahr.