LAHORE, 11 October 2004 — Guards at a Shiite mosque in the Punjab capital of Lahore yesterday stopped a suicide bomber who set off the explosives in the briefcase he was carrying. The bomber, two guards and a worshipper died in the attack on the Husainia Hall Mosque near Mochi Darwaza in the ancient walled part of the city. Eight people were injured. They are treated in the city’s Mewaa Hospital.
The blast took place at the time of the Maghreb prayer. Between 70 and 80 worshippers were inside the mosque at the time.
“Our two security guards were martyred and the suicide bomber was killed,” said witness Sajjad Bhutta.
The bombing was the third this month against a religious target in Punjab - an apparent exchange of brutal sectarian assaults. On Oct. 1, a suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque killed 31 people in Sialkot city. Six days later, a car bombing at a gathering of Sunni radicals in Multan killed 40 people.
No group claimed responsibility for those attacks, which prompted authorities to ban religious gatherings nationwide - except for Friday prayers at mosques.
An intelligence officer said that more than 125 people with links to outlawed extremist groups were detained for questioning over the weekend in connection with the bombings in Sialkot and Multan. They were picked up in raids on homes, mosques and Islamic seminaries in cities including Multan, Jhang, Lahore and Rawalpindi, the officer, based in Multan, said. None of them was a senior militant leader. Adding to the tensions, on Saturday two prominent Sunni clerics, Mufti Jamil and Nazir Ahmed Taunsvi, were gunned down in Karachi, triggering nighttime riots by their followers who set fire to at least four vehicles.
