Unidentified gunmen stormed into a Christian church during Protestant services yesterday morning and sprayed worshippers with bullets, killing 16 people, police and survivors said.
The attack took place at 9am at St Dominic's Church in the town of Behawalpur, 100km south of Multan in Pakistan's Punjab province. It was unclear whether the attack was related to recent unrest in Pakistan over US-led airstrikes on Afghanistan.
Survivors said worshippers tried to flee and hide under pews to escape what they called an indiscriminate hail of bullets.
"Some of them lay down. Some begged for mercy. They didn't listen," said Ali Shah, a man in his early 20s who was in the front pew of St Dominic's when the four masked gunmen burst in.
Reverend Jim Nuttle, a Catholic priest in Behawalpur, said the church was Roman Catholic-owned but that Protestants were worshipping there at the time because they do not have their own sanctuary in the town.
Authorities in Pakistan's four provinces ordered increased security at Christian churches yesterday afternoon. In Islamabad, police commandos with automatic weapons were guarding church gates yesterday afternoon.
Behawalpur Police Chief Haris Ikram, reached by telephone from Islamabad, also put the number of dead at 16. He said all were Christian except one -- a Muslim police officer named Mohammad Salim.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but intelligence officials said members of a banned Islamic group were under suspicion. They gave no details.
"I think the suspicion is they would be connected to, retaliating for what's happening in Afghanistan," Nuttle, the priest, told CNN.
No arrests were immediately made. A city police dispatcher in Behawalpur, reached by telephone, said the situation was under control.
There have been religious tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in the area, but this was the first such attack on Christians in recent memory, authorities said.
Police said at least 100 people were in the church when six unidentified attackers arrived on motorcycles and sprayed it with gunfire.
"They were in the church for a full five minutes doing this," Nuttle said. "And then they left as quickly as they came."
Shamoon Masih, 34, who was shot in the leg and the arm, said most of those who died belonged to two families. He said the gunmen didn't select particular victims but merely fired into clumps of people.
"They had no mercy for the children. They had no mercy for the women. They could see that small children were being hit by bullets, but they kept firing," Masih said.
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