KARACHI, 9 June 2005 — Eight people have been arrested here in connection with last month’s attack on a KFC restaurant that killed six employees, sources said yesterday.
Police said yesterday they had arrested eight Shiites for the arson attack on an outlet of US fast food chain KFC in the southern port city of Karachi. A mob burned down the restaurant on May 30 after five people were killed in an attack on a nearby mosque allegedly carried out by a suspected Sunni militant group with links to Al-Qaeda.
The bodies were found on May 31, a day after the mob set fire to the restaurant and damaged cars, shops and three gas stations.
All eight suspects are members of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Jafaria Pakistan party and have been remanded in police custody for seven days, Karachi investigation department chief Manzoor Mughal said.
“They have been accused of murder, attacking public and private property and arson and will face trial,” Mughal said.
Another 48 protesters who were arrested during the riots have now been freed, Mughal added.
Shiite groups have demonstrated against the arrests and demanded the immediate release of their arrested members.
“We were not responsible for the reaction and burning of KFC, though we all condemn the death of six poor employees. But those arrested were innocent,” Tehreek-e-Jafaria party leader Hasan Turbai said.
The KFC was torched minutes after three attackers allegedly from the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi extremist group stormed a Shiite mosque during evening prayers in Karachi’s eastern Gulshan area last week.
One assailant died in a gunbattle with police, another blew himself up and a third sustained head injuries, apparently in a fall. A police officer and two others also died.
Police said they had arrested two more Lashkar-e-Jhangvi men as a result of the lead provided by the third attacker.
One of Pakistan’s most feared militant groups, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has been implicated in the beheading of US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 and in a number of attempts to assassinate President Pervez Musharraf.
