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Copyright Dispatch Media (Pty) Ltd, 1998
History of Dispatch

Updated: 9am GMT -- Wednesday, 2 June, 2004

Mourners run riot in Karachi

KARACHI - Pakistani police fired teargas at thousands of Shiite Muslims here yesterday as violence broke out among crowds mourning the death of 20 people in a bomb attack.

Thousands of wailing, chest-beating Shiites had gathered near the Ali Raza mosque to mourn the victims of Monday's attack, which police believe may have been the work of a suicide bomber.

Mourners turned angry after a breakdown in negotiations with police on funeral procession routes and began torching cars and wrecking shops.

The victims were later buried in two graveyards on the outskirts of the city after which the large crowd dispersed.

Police said they had detained 150 people for arson and firing at officers during the clashes.

The death toll in Monday's attack rose to 20 yesterday, when one of the 39 injured died in hospital, city police chief Tariq Jamil said.

The city has been engulfed by riots since Sunday, when a senior cleric from the rival Sunni sect was shot dead when leaving his home.

The riots have brought the commercial capital to a virtual standstill, with shopkeepers and public transport too scared to operate.

Supporters of the Sunni cleric, Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, a close friend of fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar, rampaged throughout Sunday.

During riots by Shiites on Monday night three people were killed in shoot-outs between police and protestors.

Jamil said during rioting before the funeral, protesters set fire to 35 vehicles and damaged outlets of United States fast-food chains KFC and McDonalds.

Five police officers sustained bullet wounds.

Police believe Monday's mosque attack may have been by a suicide bomber in revenge for Shamzai's killing.

Just 25 days earlier a suicide bomber at another Shiite mosque here killed 23 people.

Since May7, five attacks, three of them sectarian, have taken 46 lives, 42 of them Shiites.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf was "disturbed" by the escalating violence and was planning urgent measures to combat it, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid said.

"He will take some important decision, which can protect and save the lives of people and address the law and order situation," Rashid said, declining to elaborate.

Over 15000 police and paramilitary troops were already guarding Shiite centres and other sensitive areas on Monday following Shamzai's murder, but they failed to prevent the latest attack.

Analysts said the level of violence here was the worst in two decades.

"As far as I remember, the last time I saw violence of this magnitude was in 1984," Shiite leader Hasan Turabi said.

Rashid denied that authorities had lost control of the city.

"We haven't lost control, but there is a lack of information and handling by the administration in Karachi," Rashid said.

Analysts saw the latest surge in attacks as a bid by militant groups to distract the government's efforts to dismantle them and hunt down their leaders, such as the al-Qaeda-linked militant said to have masterminded two plots to kill Musharraf, said Amjad Farooqi.

"They are doing this to show they are powerful enough to disrupt governance and undermine the government's credibility," Hasan Askari Rizvi, former head of political science at Punjab University, said.

But Turabi said the murder of Shamzai and the blast at the Shiite mosque were "an attempt to divide the two Muslim sects".

No one has claimed responsibility for Monday's bombing. - Sapa- AFP


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