At least 29 people were killed in three-way gunfire triggered by an attack on a procession of Shiite Muslims in the southwest Pakistani city of Quetta on Tuesday, a senior official said.
”Twenty-nine people are dead,” the official said, asking not to be named.
The violence, coinciding with devastating attacks on Shiite processions in Iraq that left scores of pilgrims dead, triggered a rampage by mobs of Shiites who torched shops, burnt tyres and blocked roads.
The chaos forced authorities to declare a curfew and call in troops.
Scores of people were injured, said the police chief of Baluchistan province, Shoaib Suddle.
At least 38 people were injured, according to doctors at Quetta’s Civil hospital.
Quetta, a dusty city 720km from Islamabad and 100km from the Afghan border, was the scene of one of Pakistan’s worst sectarian attacks when 48 Shiites were gunned down last July as they prayed at a city mosque. Rival Sunni extremists were blamed.
It was unclear whether Tuesday’s victims were shot by attackers or police and paramilitaries firing indiscriminately after an explosion and a single gunshot triggered stampedes.
”We don’t know as yet how they were shot … because there was a stampede and there’s no confirmation who fired and what’s going on and there’s still firing in the city,” said Quetta Mayor Mohammad Rahim Kakar.
Witnesses said a gunshot was fired from the roof of a building into a procession by thousands of Shiites observing Ashura, the holiest day of their year, in Quetta’s busy Meezan Chowk area at about 1.40pm (8.40am GMT).
”The trouble erupted when somebody fired a shot from the roof of a state-owned building,” said Kakar.
”It was followed by an explosion in the procession that triggered panic and people starting fleeing.”
Paramilitaries and police guarding the procession fired at the building where the gunshot came from and fired into the air, killing one attacker, Karkar said.
Ashura, which marks the anniversary of the martyrdom of Muslim saint Imam Hussein in 680AD, is observed by Shiites with mourning parades and frenzied displays of self-flagellation.
Shiites account for about 20% of Pakistan’s 140-million Muslims. Violence between fanatics of the rival Sunni and Shiite Islamic sects has claimed thousands of lives in Pakistan over the past two decades.
Sectarian tensions had risen ahead of Ashura after a suicide bomber blew himself up near a Shiite mosque in the northern city of Rawalpindi, next to Islamabad, on Saturday.
Three worshippers were injured but none was killed.
The weekend attack prompted authorities to deploy heavier than usual security for the Ashura parades, which took place on Monday and Tuesday.
Tens of thousands of police and paramilitary troops were deployed to guard mosques and patrol streets to prevent violence.
Sunni extremists resent the Ashura parades for their excessive displays of grief and self-flagellation. However the parades have rarely been attacked.
The last deadly violence at an Ashura parade in Pakistan occurred in 1984 in southern port city Karachi, when three people died during rampages by mobs of Shiite mourners after stones were pelted at them. — Sapa-AFP