ISLAMABAD/PESHAWAR, 31 January 2007 — Authorities clamped curfew in Hangu in the North West Frontier Province yesterday after attack on a religious procession sparked a burst of shooting that left two people dead.

“Unknown attackers fired a few mortar rounds that landed near the procession and then there was an exchange of firing,” said police officer Khalid Khan.

Shooting broke out after either a rocket or a grenade exploded near the police protecting the pre-dawn procession in Hangu, about 100 kilometers from the regional capital of Peshawar, police said.

Saadullah Khan, a police official in Hangu, said the dead men were Afghan refugees and that both were Sunnis. Nine police officers and four civilians were injured, some by bullets and others by shrapnel, he said.

Khan said it was unclear who was behind the initial attack or the gunfire, the latest in a string of acts of sectarian violence.

On Monday, a suicide bomber killed a police officer protecting a Shiite procession and a bystander in Dera Ismail Khan, another northwestern city, and rocket fire injured 11 worshippers at another mosque. A suicide attack on Saturday near a mosque in Peshawar killed 15 people and wounded more than 30 others, mostly police. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Extremists have repeatedly targeted Shiites during the Muharram processions.

Across the country yesterday, Muharram processions were taken out.

In the southern port of Karachi, sharpshooters were deployed yesterday on the roofs of buildings along a downtown street as an estimated 40,000 people in a procession filed past, police said. Traffic had been diverted and residents along the route told to stay off their balconies.

Marchers carried huge black and white religious flags, with many beating their chests. Some 1,200 police and troops from the paramilitary Rangers force were deployed in the area, said Mushtaq Shah, deputy chief of Karachi police.

In Quetta, near the Afghan border, some 50,000 people gathered for a procession in the center of the city, said Zahid Afaq. Police parked trucks and tanks across roads to keep the route clear. Fearing more violence, the government has put troops on alert to intervene in dozens of potential flash points across the country.

President Pervez Musharraf called for calm and unity. He urged the people to stay calm and inform about extremists. “The entire Pakistani nation needs to face such (extremist) elements and together we can defeat them,” Musharraf told reporters before departing for a visit to Indonesia and Malaysia.