Top 10 militant groups who were themselves victims of torture

New Delhi: While militant and fascist groups are condemned for their wrongdoings, there are instances in history when the same groups became the targets of others. The wheel of life turns full circle, when the militant groups face torture at the hands of those against whom they were committing crimes. Here is a list of 10 such groups in the history: 1. The Sudeten Germans These were ethnic Germans living in the land in Czechoslovakia during World War II. They were Nazis but when the Reich rule fell, their fate befell too.Women and children were rounded up and sent on death marches to the border. Those who couldn't walk or who fell had their heads caved in with rifle butts. In the town of Aussig, a mob beat an estimated 2,000 children and pensioners to death before throwing their bodies into a river.Casualties included primarily violent deaths and suicides, rapes, deaths in internment camps and natural causes.There is no doubt that the crimes of their leaders were worse, but the expulsion of the Germans remains a dark chapter in European history, a moment when perpetrators became victims and victims turned into monsters. 2. Taliban supportersAmong the most hostile and violent groups, Taliban is the most dangerous militant group in the world. The Dasht-i-Leili massacre, that occurred in December 2001, is by far the most gruesome attack by the forces loyal to General Rashid Dostum, a former Army General of Soviet war in Afghanistan. Controlled by the West-backed Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, they rounded up over 2,000 Taliban prisoners of war into metal shipping containers and left them out in the burning Afghan sun. They were given no food or water. Over the course of three days, around 1,500 prisoners slowly baked to death or died of suffocation. Hundreds more died when guards opened fire on the containers. They were buried in an unmarked mass grave. It was the worst single atrocity of the entire Afghan conflict.Though women are oppressed under Taliban rule, but after Dostum ousted the Taliban, his men formed rape squads and went from house to house sexually abusing girls as young as 10 years.This was because those women were ethnic Pushtuns, supporters of Taliban. 3. Castro's revolutionaries While Castro is portrayed as a villain, known for mass murders and genocides, one must not forget the tragic story behind his villainous image.He was a sufferer under Batista dictatorship. Batista was a tyrant who ruled Cuba with violence, intimidation, and murders. In the last seven years of his reign, an estimated 20,000 men, women, and children were executed by barbaric police force acting with impunity. The use of torture was frighteningly widespread. Eyewitness accounts from the period report dedicated torture centers where Cuban nationalists and left-wingers had their arms cut off, their eyes gouged out, and their throats slit.When Castro finally captured power, he continued the same brutal oppression against his political enemies. 4. The Confederacy They supported slavery, tried to smash the Union, and committed some of the worst war crimes the US has ever known.Although the Confederacy did some appalling things, the human cost of the Union's “total war” was staggering. The threat of sexual violence loomed large over the occupied South.Between 1863 and 1865 alone, the Union was forced to prosecute 450 of its own troops on rape charges.Disease and starvation also took their toll.Hundreds of thousands of freed slaves starved to death in the shattered South. Outbreaks of cholera killed thousands more.The entire South was devastated, economically and physically. 5. Chechnya's rebels Chechen terrorists have caused many terrorist attacks, suicide bombs, murders. But the grey past of the Chechens is no less than a tragedy. In the 1990s, Russia launched two brutal wars to squash the dreams of Chechen independence, killing hundreds of thousands of people in the process. The Chechen capital was bombed into smoking rubble, and impossible numbers of civilians were killed or displaced.Chechens have been monitored by Russian secret agents, who frequently kidnap torture, mutilate, and murder dissenters, dumping their bodies into unmarked graves. 6. The FARC One of the most terrifying terrorist groups, it has toppled the Colombian government. Though the group is very hostile, it has also been a victim of brutal killings by the Colombian government.In 2001, they rounded up a pro-FARC village and, over the course of three days, murdered between 40 and 80 of the inhabitants.Others were beaten with rocks. One 17-year-old girl had her arms cut off with a chainsaw and was left to die in a ditch.In 1997, 49 FARC sympathizers were hacked to death and dismembered in the village of Mapiripán, the remains of their bodies thrown in a river. 7. The Muslim Brotherhood This Islamic fundamentalist organization has been declared a terrorist group by the Egyptian government, but the group itself has been a victim of suffering.A minimum of 1,400 of their members have been killed by security forces. A month after the coup, the Egyptian army opened fire on a group of their protestors, killing 120 and injuring 4,500. In mid-August, a sit-in was cleared with machine guns, sniper rifles, and bulldozers, killing hundreds of people. Kids as young as 17 were shot through the head. At least one protestor was burned alive. Military snipers even trained their fire on a nearby hospital entrance and killed anyone seeking help. 8. The Sandinistas In 1979, Nicaragua's popular Sandinista movement propelled Daniel Ortega to power, ushering in over a decade of oppression, forced disappearances, and random executions. Today, Ortega is seen as a semi-dictator and his Sandinistas are viewed as naïve at best, and dangerous lunatics at worst. Yet while this might be a fair description of these Marxist revolutionaries, it's only half of the story.The other half involves a family known as the Somozas. In 1979, they owned over 50 percent of Nicaragua's land and exactly 100 percent of its political system. Their dictatorship was almost unbelievable in its brutality. When rumblings of revolution began in Nicaraguan neighborhoods, these proto-Sopranos sent in jets to bomb civilians, killing tens of thousands. Their torture centers were infamous, and thousands of those who later became Sandinistas passed through their halls, including Ortega himself. When the Somoza family was finally kicked out by the rebels, they cultivated a private army (with US backing) that went on to indiscriminately butcher civilians involved with the Sandinista movement. 9. IRA Loyalists IRA was one of the nastiest terrorist organizations in the world. Over the course of several years, they carried out assassinations and bombings that left dozens dead and hundreds wounded.In 1971, British forces swooped on Northern Ireland and rounded up 342 suspected Loyalists.All of them were interred in a prison camp without trial and with no release date, at which point the torture started.After being beaten half to death, inmates had a hood shoved over their heads before being made to stand spread-eagle against a wall.There they were bombarded with loud, disorientating white noise scientifically designed to induce psychosis. Sleep was forbidden. Food and water were nowhere to be seen.According to the BBC, 1,900 people would eventually pass through the camp in a dark chapter now almost scrubbed out of history. 10. The Yugoslav Serbs The Balkan wars in Yugoslavia was the messiest conflict in European history. Bosnian-Muslims, Albanians, and Croats were all massacred at the hands of genocidal Serbian forces.Look a little closer and disturbing shades of gray start to emerge—such as the crimes committed against Serbs by Croatian and Albanian forces. In 1991, Croat officials announced on radio that the war-torn town of Gospic was now safe for ethnic Serbs who had fled when the fighting started.As the Serbs slowly trickled back in, the local chief of police made a list of the names and homes of the returning civilians. A few days later, this “death list” was used to round up 120 of them in cattle trucks. Their bodies were later found in mass graves. Only one man was ever convicted for the massacre.