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Nine Dead, 11 Injured In Sectarian Attack In Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, March 12 (News Agencies) - Nine people were killed and 11 wounded when gunmen opened fire at worshippers in a mosque in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore late Monday, police said.
"Three men opened fire at the worshippers offering prayers in a Sunni Muslim mosque and killed nine people while more than a dozen were injured," Lahore police Deputy Inspector General Javed Noor said.
The attackers arrived at the mosque on two motorcycles and fled after the shooting, he said.
Witnesses said the three opened fire just as the late evening prayers ended at the mosque controlled by the Sunni group Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP).
"The condition of five injured is serious," doctor Zahid Akbar at city's Mayo hospital said.
Police said six people died on the spot while three others died in the hospital.
Police suspect the hand of minority Shiite group, Sipah-i-Mohammad Pakistan, in the incident which is the latest in a series of attacks that has claimed dozens of lives since late February.
Noor said security had been tightened and armed police moved to guard the Iranian Cultural Center in central Lahore.
Witnesses said the attackers fired automatic weapons at the worshippers for several minutes.
"I heard the rattling of gun shots and loud shrieks before I was run over by the yelling crowd," Mohammad Musa, 55, said.
Police said more than 30 people were in the mosque located in a thickly populated western part of the city.
Pakistan has been rocked by sectarian violence since the hanging of a Muslim Sunni, Haq Nawaz, who was sentenced to death for killing Iranian diplomat Sadiq Gunji in 1990 in Lahore.
The worst incident was in the northwestern city of Hangu where fighting between rival groups left 14 people dead, leading to imposition of an indefinite curfew in the area.
Twelve people were shot dead when six gunmen in two groups opened fire at a Shiite shop and a gathering at a graveyard in Sheikhopura 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of the Punjab provincial capital Lahore on March 4th.
Pakistani military ruler General Pervez Musharraf last week warned of stern action against "terrorists".
"I want to say this very categorically that anyone who has indulged in such killings and whosoever is behind these killings, would be taken to task sternly," Musharraf said.
Nawaz was a member of the SSP, the parent organization of an underground outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, whose chief, Riaz Basra, has a bounty of five million rupees ($82,000) on his head in Pakistan.
Basra had also been sentenced to death for his role in the killing of the Iranian diplomat, but escaped from custody and is now believed to be in neighboring Afghanistan.
Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider last month visited Afghanistan for talks with the ruling Taliban Islamic militia but returned without making progress on Pakistani demands for the extradition of some 60 sectarian "terrorists".
More than 3,000 people have died in violence between majority Sunni and minority Shiite community in the past decade.
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