| Deaths in Pakistan bus attack | ||
| | ||
| Killing of at least 13 Shia Muslims in northwestern city of Quetta prompts protests by victims' families. Last Modified: 04 Oct 2011 04:07 | ||
Armed men near the northwestern Pakistani city of Quetta have killed at least 13 Shia Muslims headed to a vegetable market in what police believe to be a sectarian attack. Witnesses say the attackers approached a bus headed towards Dalbandin 45 minutes into their journey, in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, of which Quetta is the capital. According to senior police officer Hamid Shakeel, the passengers were forced to stand in line as four or five gunment opened fire, killing 13 and wounding five. Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder said that the majority of those killed were from the ethnic Hazara community, who are largely from the Shia sect. Families of the victims, many of whom were shopkeepers and merchants, set fire to a bus used to transport the injured and dead in a show of protest, according to the private Pakistani television channel Geo TV. Another group of protesters reportedly blocked access to the main highway leading to Quetta. At 20 per cent of the nation's population, Shia Muslims are the largest of Pakistan's minority groups. Though no one has claimed responsibility, Pakistan's Shia have increasingly been victim to sectarian attacks by Sunni Muslims loyal to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. This was the second suspected attack targeting Shia Muslims in the majority Sunni nation in the last two weeks. |
Deaths in Pakistan bus attack - Central & South Asia - Al Jazeera English
No comments:
Post a Comment