At least 27 people were killed and 18 wounded when a bomb exploded on Saturday at a gathering of minority Shia Muslims in a remote town in south-west Pakistan.
Thousands of worshippers had congregated at the shrine of a Shia saint near the town of Naseerabad, about 336km south of Quetta, when the bomb went off outside at about 10.20pm. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
Mehrab Khan, a police official, told the Associated Press news agency: ”It was a powerful bomb. There was blood and body parts everywhere. Right now people are angry. They are wailing and crying. Some of them have blocked roads in the town.”
He said he expected the death toll to rise.
Hospital officials said nine of the injured were in critical condition. All the victims were men.
Pakistan has a history of sectarian violence, mostly blamed on rival majority Sunni and minority Shia extremist groups. About 80% of Pakistan’s 150 million people are Sunnis and 17% Shia.
Most of the Muslims live together peacefully, but small groups of militants on both sides stage attacks.
Saturday’s attack came two weeks after the arrest of a suspected Sunni militant accused of killing as many as 130 Shia in different attacks in recent years.
Ramzan Mengal, a member of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi militant group, was arrested on March 4 in the provincial capital, Quetta, as he was going to a mosque for evening prayers.
Police said Mengal was believed to be involved in an attack last year on a procession of Shias in Quetta that left 45 people dead.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which is linked to al-Qaeda, is one of several groups outlawed by President General Pervez Musharraf in 2001 and 2002 in an effort to purge extremism from his country. — Guardian Unlimited Â