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Rioting mourners clash with Karachi police
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-06-02 10:53

Police clashed with rioting mourners yesterday as thousands gathered for the funerals of 19 killed in an apparent suicide bombing that ripped through a crowded Shi'ite Muslim mosque here, the latest terrorist attack to hit Pakistan's largest city.


Two Pakistani men throw water as they attempt to douse the flames of a bus set on fire in Karachi. Riots have brought Karachi to a virtual standstill, with shopkeepers and public transport too scared of riots to operate. [AFP]

About 200 angry Shi'ites set fire to three buses, a bank, bus company offices and shops housed in one building a few doors down from the mosque hit in Monday's bombing.

Hundreds of police fired tear gas at the crowd along a major highway in this southern city.

Fearing sectarian clashes between rival Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims, thousands of police and paramilitary rangers were on maximum alert and were also equipped with live ammunition, although there were no reports of firing.

Two processions of thousands of mourners set off in different directions after prayers at the wrecked Imam Bargah Ali Raza mosque, leaving the rioters behind. The unrest began after the mob started stoning police.

President Pervez Musharraf has pledged action to stem the wave of bloodletting.

The bomb, which ripped through the mosque during evening prayers on Monday, also injured at least 42 people, police said.

The attack sparked night-time rioting by hundreds of enraged Shi'ite youths who burned cars and buildings and blocked highways and the main railway line.

An ensuing shootout between rioters and police left three more people dead.

No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing. But Karachi has been wracked by violence between the Sunni Muslim majority and Shi'ite minority, and the attack was seen as revenge for the assassination on Sunday of a senior Sunni Muslim cleric, Nazamuddin Shamzai, that also triggered street battles between youths and police.

'Apparently, it was a suicide attack,' said senior police investigator Manzoor Mughal, after night-time operations to recover bodies and sift through the rubble.

'We did not see any crater in the mosque, which shows that it was a suicide attack.'

Karachi police chief Asad Ashraf Malik said a body retrieved from the scene was being examined to determine whether it was that of a suicide bomber.

The blast cracked walls, destroyed an inner office and badly damaged a room where people wash up before praying at the mosque, near the city centre on Karachi's main highway. The explosion also shattered windows in a tall building opposite the mosque.

 
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