Najafabad, Qahdarijan

Sources believe the group of Seyed Mehdi Hashemi, one of the founders of the IRGC in Esfahan, tortured and murdered political dissidents in the gardens around Qahdarijan in Esfahan, and buried their corpses in ditches there.

Hashemi was the brother of the son-in-law of Hassan Ali Montazeri, the designated successor of Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic revolution. After the revolution, Hashemi served in many posts in the IRGC.

In 1988, because of the escalating disagreement between Khomeini and Montazeri, Seyed Mehdi Hashemi was tried and executed on the charge of murdering a number of influential clergymen before the 1979 revolution and burying them secretly in the gardens around Ghahdarijan. No reference was made to the killings of political opponents of the Islamic Republic.