ISLAMABAD, 3 March 2004 — Gunmen opened indiscriminate fire on Shiite mourners during a procession in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta yesterday, killing at least 44 people and wounding more than 150 others. The mayor of the city declared an immediate curfew.
Officials reported an explosion and gunfire in a congested area of Quetta, the main city in Balochistan province, as a procession of hundreds of Shiites marking Ashoura.
Soon after, a Sunni mosque, a television network office and several shops were set afire as Shiites rioted in parts of the city, and an exchange of gunfire took place near the scene of the initial attack, police said.
Mohammed Wasim, a doctor at the Central Government Hospital in Quetta, said the facility had received 19 bodies. The Combined Military Hospital reported 22 bodies were brought in since the attack early in the afternoon.
A senior intelligence officer said authorities had scratched together the remains of one of the suspected attackers, and that there was evidence he may have blown himself up. Government officials said the carnage was an effort by extremist groups to destabilize the country. President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has become a staunch ally of the US war on terrorism, earning the ire of extremists. He narrowly escaped two assassination attempts in December.
“Obviously, the purpose of this attack was to create unrest,” Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said. “This is a very sad incident and we condemn it.”
Mayor Abdul Rahim Kakar said troops and paramilitary forces had been deployed in the city of 1.2 million. “I was present near the procession when we first heard an explosion and then some people fired shots,” he said.
