Bomb Targets Shiite Muslims at Service in Pakistan
Fayyaz Mehmood/Reuters
A man was transported to a hospital after being injured in a bomb attack on a Shiite gathering on Sunday in Khanpur, Pakistan.
Fayyaz Mehmood/Reuters
A man was transported to a hospital after being injured in a bomb attack on a Shiite gathering on Sunday in Khanpur, Pakistan.
By DECLAN WALSH
Published: January 15, 2012
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ISLAMBAD, Pakistan — An explosion ripped through a crowd of Shiite Muslims in central Pakistan on Sunday, killing at least 17 people in one of the largest such attacks in recent times in Pakistan’s most populous province.
The police said a bomb in Khanpur, a town in the southern part of the province, Punjab, killed Shiite worshipers as they streamed out of a mosque after a religious ceremony. The local police chief, Sohail Zaffar Chatta, said the device appeared to have been detonated by remote control.
By early evening, 17 people had been confirmed killed and 25 wounded, with the death toll expected to rise. Images on television from the scene showed black-clad women mourning over a body in the street while men angrily remonstrated before the cameras, beating their chests.
The victims were engaged in a ceremony commemorating the 40th day after the death anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Imam Hussein, a highly revered figure in Shiite Islam.
Sunni extremist groups, who view Shiites as heretics, have been implicated in a rising number of a sectarian attacks, according to human rights monitors.
“Ordinary Shias going about their daily lives are being increasingly targeted and killed,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, Pakistan director for Human Rights Watch, which is based in New York.
While sectarian bloodshed occurs throughout Pakistan, it is concentrated in Baluchistan, a sprawling northwestern province where Taliban fighters and nationalist insurgents roam. Human Rights Watch reports that more than 300 Shiites, many from the ethnic Hazara community, have been killed in Baluchistan since 2008.
In September, gunmen executed 26 Hazara pilgrims after pulling them off a bus headed for Iran. Three more pilgrims were killed later as the wounded were being taken to hospital in Quetta, the provincial capital.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a militant group with historical ties to the Pakistani security establishment, claimed responsibility for Sunday’s attack. In early December, the group also took responsibility for an attack in the Afghan capital, Kabul, that killed at least 63 Shiite worshipers.
While the group has been most active in Baluchistan in the past year, its main recruiting ground has been in the same part of Punjab where Sunday’s attack occurred. The group’s leader, Malik Ishaq, is from Khanpur, the site of Sunday’s blast. He was released from jail in July 2011 and spent several months under house arrest in the area, but he is currently in a Lahore jail, said Mr. Chatta, the police chief.
Mr. Hasan of Human Rights Watch said, “Sunni militancy is becoming more strident and exploiting the fault lines within Pakistani society.”
The gruesome scenes in a quiet provincial town were graphic reminders of the extremist violence that continues to plague Pakistan as the country’s military and political leaders engage in an acrimonious struggle in the capital, Islamabad.
The army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and President Asif Ali Zardari are on opposites sides of two controversial cases before the Supreme Court. The men met face to face on Saturday for the first time since the crisis erupted, apparently in a bid to show that their relationship had not completely collapsed.
Both sides said little about what happened, but the president’s spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, denied reports that General Kayani had demanded that the government retract its public criticism of the army leadership.
The judicial conflict is set to resume Monday, when the Supreme Court again takes up the two cases troubling the civilian government, which could potentially result in its ouster.
The first hearing concerns the latest installment of a corruption-related investigation into Mr. Zardari’s finances, which the court recently revived. The second focuses on accusations that civilian officials sought the American government’s help to stave off a possible coup by the humiliated Pakistani military after an American raid killed Osama bin Laden in May.
Mansoor Ijaz, an American businessman of Pakistani origin who made the coup accusations, has told reporters that he will return to Pakistan to give testimony on Monday.
But Mr. Babar, the presidential spokesman, said Mr. Ijaz had not yet applied for a visa. “We have no idea about whether and when he will enter Pakistan,” he said.
Waqar Gillani contributed reporting.
A version of this article appeared in print on January 16, 2012, on page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: Bomb Strikes Gathering of Shiite Worshipers in Pakistan.
Published: January 15, 2012
================================================
ISLAMBAD, Pakistan — An explosion ripped through a crowd of Shiite Muslims in central Pakistan on Sunday, killing at least 17 people in one of the largest such attacks in recent times in Pakistan’s most populous province.
The police said a bomb in Khanpur, a town in the southern part of the province, Punjab, killed Shiite worshipers as they streamed out of a mosque after a religious ceremony. The local police chief, Sohail Zaffar Chatta, said the device appeared to have been detonated by remote control.
By early evening, 17 people had been confirmed killed and 25 wounded, with the death toll expected to rise. Images on television from the scene showed black-clad women mourning over a body in the street while men angrily remonstrated before the cameras, beating their chests.
The victims were engaged in a ceremony commemorating the 40th day after the death anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Imam Hussein, a highly revered figure in Shiite Islam.
Sunni extremist groups, who view Shiites as heretics, have been implicated in a rising number of a sectarian attacks, according to human rights monitors.
“Ordinary Shias going about their daily lives are being increasingly targeted and killed,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, Pakistan director for Human Rights Watch, which is based in New York.
While sectarian bloodshed occurs throughout Pakistan, it is concentrated in Baluchistan, a sprawling northwestern province where Taliban fighters and nationalist insurgents roam. Human Rights Watch reports that more than 300 Shiites, many from the ethnic Hazara community, have been killed in Baluchistan since 2008.
In September, gunmen executed 26 Hazara pilgrims after pulling them off a bus headed for Iran. Three more pilgrims were killed later as the wounded were being taken to hospital in Quetta, the provincial capital.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a militant group with historical ties to the Pakistani security establishment, claimed responsibility for Sunday’s attack. In early December, the group also took responsibility for an attack in the Afghan capital, Kabul, that killed at least 63 Shiite worshipers.
While the group has been most active in Baluchistan in the past year, its main recruiting ground has been in the same part of Punjab where Sunday’s attack occurred. The group’s leader, Malik Ishaq, is from Khanpur, the site of Sunday’s blast. He was released from jail in July 2011 and spent several months under house arrest in the area, but he is currently in a Lahore jail, said Mr. Chatta, the police chief.
Mr. Hasan of Human Rights Watch said, “Sunni militancy is becoming more strident and exploiting the fault lines within Pakistani society.”
The gruesome scenes in a quiet provincial town were graphic reminders of the extremist violence that continues to plague Pakistan as the country’s military and political leaders engage in an acrimonious struggle in the capital, Islamabad.
The army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and President Asif Ali Zardari are on opposites sides of two controversial cases before the Supreme Court. The men met face to face on Saturday for the first time since the crisis erupted, apparently in a bid to show that their relationship had not completely collapsed.
Both sides said little about what happened, but the president’s spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, denied reports that General Kayani had demanded that the government retract its public criticism of the army leadership.
The judicial conflict is set to resume Monday, when the Supreme Court again takes up the two cases troubling the civilian government, which could potentially result in its ouster.
The first hearing concerns the latest installment of a corruption-related investigation into Mr. Zardari’s finances, which the court recently revived. The second focuses on accusations that civilian officials sought the American government’s help to stave off a possible coup by the humiliated Pakistani military after an American raid killed Osama bin Laden in May.
Mansoor Ijaz, an American businessman of Pakistani origin who made the coup accusations, has told reporters that he will return to Pakistan to give testimony on Monday.
But Mr. Babar, the presidential spokesman, said Mr. Ijaz had not yet applied for a visa. “We have no idea about whether and when he will enter Pakistan,” he said.
Waqar Gillani contributed reporting.
A version of this article appeared in print on January 16, 2012, on page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: Bomb Strikes Gathering of Shiite Worshipers in Pakistan.
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