Bomb hits procession and kills 16 in Pakistan

A bomb ripped through a Shiite procession killing 16 marchers and wounding over 20 others in central Pakistan yesterday, police said, as the spectre of sectarian violence again loomed.

No group claimed immediate responsibility for the carnage in Punjab province, but Shiites have often been targeted in Pakistan by extreme Sunni groups that regard them as apostates.

Shiites account for about 20 per cent of Pakistan’s mostly Sunni Muslim population of 160 million.

The bomb hit as Shiites were marking the 40th day of mourning the death of the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson Imam Hussain.

Dunya TV news broadcast footage of several dead and bloodied bodies lying on the ground. Pictures showed a cloud of grey smoke rising in the sky with people beating their chests and heads and crying for help.

“The evidences showed that it was a bomb blast, we are examining whether it was a planted one or a timed device,” Suhail Zafar, a senior police official, told reporters in Rahim Yar Khan district.

Shiites have often been targeted by extreme Sunni groups

Mohammad Mushtaq, a senior government official, said 16 people had been killed and 20 wounded. The injured hadbeen rushed to local hospitals, he added.

After angry and tearful marchers attacked a police station, Mr Mushtaq said,“We are trying to calm the situation... We have talked with their leaders and the situation is now under control.”

Nabeela Ghazanfar, a spokesman for Punjab police, said 25 people were wounded in the bomb blast.

There had been confusion at first as to the cause of the explosion, with one senior police official, Abid Qadri, saying it was caused when a flag from the procession hit a power wire.

Fingers were pointed at fanatics in Pakistan after an unprecedented bomb attack targeting Shiite Muslims on December 6 in neighbouring Afghanistan killed more than 80 people.

The twin blasts in Kabul and in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif prompted fears that Afghanistan could descend into the sort of sectarian violence that has pitched Shiites against Sunnis in Iraq and Pakistan.

More than 4,000 people have died in outbreaks of sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite groups since the late 1980s in Pakistan.