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Mon 31 May 2004

Sunni cleric's killing sets off chain of violence in Karachi

ZARAR KHAN IN KARACHI

SUNNI Muslim crowds ransacked shops, banks and a police station in the Pakistani city of Karachi yesterday, after a senior pro-Taleban cleric was shot dead.

Angry crowds shouted slogans against rival Shiite Muslims, raising fears of sectarian unrest. Police and the protesters exchanged gunfire, injuring at least three policemen and four protesters, police said.

Tens of thousands of mourners later gathered for the evening funeral of the cleric, Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, and police fired warning shots over the heads of the throng, after some started throwing stones.

The violence started after gunmen riding in two cars and a motorcycle attacked Mr Shamzai, a fervent critic of the United States-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, early yesterday. He was travelling to his seminary in the east of the city, said police official Fayyaz Qureshi.

A bodyguard of the cleric returned fire and wounded one of the six attackers in the stomach but he got away, police said, quoting witnesses. Four others in Mr Shamzai’s vehicle were wounded but none seriously.

Mr Shamzai, who was in his seventies, died of gunshot wounds in a nearby hospital. No-one claimed responsibility for the killing, and there were no arrests.

Mr Shamzai, a softly spoken and scholarly man, was a strong supporter of Afghanistan’s former ruling Taleban regime. He headed the Jamia Islamia Binor Town religious school where thousands of students receive an Islamic education.

He rose to prominence after the 11 September attacks when he led a delegation of clerics from Pakistan to Afghanistan in a last-ditch effort - that failed - to save the Taleban from US attack in late 2001.

After Mr Shamzai’s shooting, angry Sunni students from seminaries in ethnic Pashtun-dominated areas of the city poured on to the streets, starting fires and pelting vehicles with stones. Riot police and paramilitary rangers were deployed.

"Our task is to protect Shiite worship areas as we fear a backlash on these areas," said Major-General Javed Zia, chief of the paramilitary rangers in the city.

Hundreds of Mr Shamzai’s supporters, mostly seminary students, raided a police station, beating up three policemen, and setting fire to vehicles. Around the city, they set fire to four banks, ransacked shops, and partly destroyed a cinema and a petrol station. They also smashed up a KFC restaurant and stole two ambulances.

In the worst clashes, about 2,000 rioters attacked bank and newspaper offices. Police in armoured cars fired in the air and with tear gas, and from within the crowd, automatic gunfire crackled back.


This article:

  http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=616772004

India & Pakistan:

  http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=68

Websites:

  Government of India
  http://goidirectory.nic.in/

  Islamic Republic of Pakistan
  http://www.pak.gov.pk/

  The Times of India
  http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

  The Nation (Pakistani newspaper)
  http://www.syberwurx.com/nation/daily/today/main/i

  Pakistan Today
  http://www.paktoday.com/

  Hindustan Times
  http://www.hindustantimes.com/

  Jammu & Kashmir Government
  http://jammukashmir.nic.in/

  Kashmir Information Network
  http://www.kashmir-information.com/

  Kashmir Observer
  http://www.kashmirobserver.com/

  Kashmir Times
  http://www.kashmirtimes.com/

  Pakistan Government Kashmir site
  http://www.pak.gov.pk/public/kashmir/kashmir.htm