A suspected suicide attack tore into Shi’ite Muslims in Pakistan on Thursday as they celebrated the holiest day in their calendar, sparking riots and leaving at least 31 people dead and 50 wounded, officials said.
Soldiers rushed to the northwestern town of Hangu after angry Shi’ites torched shops and cars following the attack on devotees marking Ashura, a mourning festival for the seventh-century death of prophet Muhammad’s grandson.
Provincial police chief Riffat Pasha said the local hospital had received the bodies of 23 people who died both in the initial attack and in the ensuing armed clashes between Shi’ites and rival Sunni Muslims.
Officials said at least 50 people were wounded and Pasha said 22 serious cases had been evacuated from the town.
“From eyewitness accounts it appears that it was a suicide attack,” Pasha told Agence France-Presse.
Gunmen later sprayed bullets at a passenger minibus in the village of Saidan Banda near Hangu, killing four people inside, a senior security official said on condition of anonymity.
Separately, unidentified attackers at a roadblock stopped four trucks in Ibrahimzai area, 18km from Hangu, then dragged the drivers out and shot them dead before torching the vehicles, the official said.
“The situation is being controlled but it is still tense,” Pasha said.
Witnesses said a pall of smoke hung over the city and the sound of sporadic gunfire continued to ring out as night fell.
Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao said the government had deployed army and paramilitary forces to control the unrest in Hangu, which is 175km from Islamabad.
He said announcements had been made from local mosques urging calm while security had been boosted across the country.
Pakistan’s majority Sunnis and minority Shi’ites generally live in harmony, but thousands of people from both communities have been killed across the country in sectarian attacks in recent years.
Hangu was the scene of sectarian violence during Ashura in 2001 in which 12 people were killed.
Hangu mayor Ghaniur Rehman said there were two explosions on Thursday, one near a stage where around 1 000 people gathered to hear religious leaders speaking and another seconds later about 300m away.
“I was standing near the stage and some people on the stage were reciting mourning verses when there was a huge explosion followed by gunfire,” said local Shi’ite leader Khurshid Anwar Sajidi, adding that he saw at least 15 bodies.
“I think it was a suicide attack because there was no place to hide the bomb near the stage,” he said.
Rehman said the situation was still “very bad” in Hangu. “We have reports that some bodies are still lying in the streets and because of the violence and bad security situation they cannot be removed,” he said.
Pakistan has massively beefed up security for Ashura — the 10th day in the Muslim mourning month of Muharram — which is a favourite target of Sunni militants.
Many Shi’ites mark the ceremony by publicly wailing and by flagellating themselves with knives attached to chains.
Rizwan Haider Kazmi, central president of the Imamia Students Organisation, a Shi’ite youth group, called on the government to track down those responsible for the bombing.
“The attack in Hangu is aimed at triggering sectarian violence. We will stage protest rallies in the country on Friday against the killings,” he said.
President Pervez Musharraf has led a major crackdown on Islamic extremism and sectarianism since allying Pakistan with the United States following the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
Separately, in neighbouring Afghanistan at least three people were killed and 52 wounded on Thursday in clashes between hundreds of Sunni Muslims and Shi’ites commemorating Ashura in the western city of Herat. – AFP