One killed as riots erupt in DG Khan
Angry mobs set ablaze a police picket, a number of motorcycles, ransacked shops, a bank and a CNG station. The heirs of blast victims chanted slogans against the police at DHQ Hospital when senior advisor to Punjab government, Sardar Zulfiqar Ali Khan Khosa, was distributing cheques among the injured along with provincial Minister for Local Government Sardar Dost Mohammad Khan Khosa.
The protesters attacked Markaz Almodat and tried to set ablaze shops. They pelted ambulances of Rescue 1122 with stones. All the educational institutions, banks and markets remained closed all day long to mourn the killings.
One person was killed and eight injured Friday during protests in the town of Uch Sharif, 60 kilometres south of Dera Ghazi Khan, police said.
The violence erupted after 70 to 80 Shia took to the streets and threw stones at the shops of Sunni traders.
“Sunni traders also threw stones at Shia protesters and in the scuffle one person was killed and eight others wounded,” local police official Azhar Hameed told AFP, adding police had brought the situation under control.
Meanwhile, part of the face and head of the suspected suicide bomber was found at the blast site and he appeared to be an 18 to 20-year-old bearded man,” said Sardar Zulfikar Khosa, senior adviser to chief minister.
All the major roads of the city were blocked by the protesters. They burnt tyres at Pul Piyare Wali, Pul Andhay Wali, Faisal Chowk, Jampur Road, Traffic Chowk, Pul Dot, Quaid-e-Azam Road and other parts of the city.
Riots, protests condemn Pakistan Shiite mosque blast
DERA GHAZI KHAN, Pakistan (AFP) — Mobs sacked property and protesters called for revenge in central Pakistan on Friday after a bomb killed 33 people near a mosque in one of the country’s deadliest anti-Shiite attacks.
Police said 33 people were killed and 52 wounded when a suspected suicide bomb ripped through a crowd near a Shiite mosque in the town of Dera Ghazi Khan in the central Punjab province late Thursday.
The attack was the deadliest bombing since October in Pakistan, where extremists opposed to the government’s support for the US-led « war on terror » have killed more than 1,500 people in just over a year and a half.
One person was killed and eight injured Friday during protests in the town of Uch Sharif, 60 kilometres (40 miles) south of Dera Ghazi Khan, police said.
The violence erupted after 70 to 80 Shiites took to the streets and threw stones at the shops of Sunni traders.
« Sunni traders also threw stones at Shiite protestors and in the scuffle one person was killed and eight others wounded, » local police official Azhar Hameed told AFP, adding police had brought the situation under control.
In Dera Ghazi Khan, schools, shops, businesses and offices were closed following a night of violent protests by Shiite students who damaged a police vehicle and broke traffic lights and signs, police and witnesses said.
Angry youths stormed a police office, setting things alight, and smashed windows and damaged furniture in a local bank, said a local police official.
« Less than two dozen angry youths, whose relatives died in yesterday’s tragedy were destroying property, but the situation is under control, » said the officer, Ausaf Ali Rana.
But some witnesses accused police of standing back.
« Police were silent spectators. Some youths carrying batons were destroying neon signs, hoardings, shops, a bank and a petrol station, » local trader Yaquob Mirza told AFP by telephone.
Thousands of mourners and government officials attended a mass funeral for people killed in the blast under tight security as police reinforcements patrolled the shuttered streets and the areas around Sunni Muslim mosques.
Muslims usually coexist peacefully in Pakistan, but outbreaks of sectarian violence have claimed more than 4,000 lives since the late 1980s in the Sunni-majority country.
Although there was no immediate claim for Thursday’s blast, police were swift to blame sectarian extremists for what they said was a suicide bombing.
« Part of the face and head of the suspected suicide bomber was found at the blast site and he appeared to be a 18 to 20-year-old bearded man, » said Sardar Zulfikar Khosa, senior adviser to the top elected Punjab official.
He said some 20 suspects had been detained in connection with the attack.
« They were seen distributing hate pamphlets in a videotape, which was recorded by Shiites in December, » he said. « However no other evidence has been found yet and the investigation is in progress ».
Hundreds of Shiites protested in Multan, the closest sizeable town, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Dera Ghazi Khan, denouncing the bombing and demanding the immediate arrest of the culprits, an AFP reporter said.
Dressed in black and beating their chests, some carried banners saying « stop sectarianism » and « we will take revenge » as police looked on.
In Lahore, the provincial capital, more than 200 men, women and children burned tyres and shouted slogans, an AFP reporter said.
« We will avenge our martyrs. We know who the killers are and who is involved in terrorism and extremism, » Qasim Rizvi, a leader of the Shiite Imamia Student Organisation, told the crowd.
Shiite faithful, who account for about 20 percent of Pakistan’s population of 160 million, are observing the last week of a mourning period to commemorate the death of their revered Imam Hussein, who was killed in 680 AD.
Unrest in Pakistan has fuelled international fears for the stability of the nuclear-armed Islamic republic, with Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants entrenched in the country’s northwest border areas with Afghanistan.
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