Unidentified gunmen shot a senior Sunni Muslim cleric in this violence-prone city yesterday, killing him and wounding four other people, and sparking unrest by his supporters who set fire to a police station, police said.
The pro-Taliban cleric -- Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai -- was attacked by gunmen riding in two cars and a motorcycle as he traveled in a pickup truck to an Islamic seminary that he headed in an eastern Karachi neighborhood, police official Fayyaz Qureshi said.
PHOTO: REUTERS
A Shamzai bodyguard returned fire and wounded one of the six attackers, Qureshi said, quoting witnesses.
Shamzai died of gunshot wounds in a nearby hospital. Among the four people who were injured in the attack on Shamzai was one of his sons, a nephew, his driver and one bodyguard, Qureshi said.
Shamzai, who was in his 70s, headed Jamia Islamia Binor Town religious school, where thousands of students get Islamic education.
After the shooting, hundreds of his supporters raided a police station near the school, beating up three policemen and setting fire to two cars and more than a dozen motorcycles, said Abdul Rashid, an official at the police station.
Desks and files were strewn on the floor of the station and smoke billowed from the fire.
In nearby Guru Mandar neighborhood, other Shamzai supporters, mainly students of Islamic seminaries, set fire to a branch of a state-run bank and smashed shop windows. They also destroyed billboards and traffic signs.
Calls were being made over loudspeakers at Shamzai's seminary urging his Sunni Muslim supporters to remain peaceful. Some of the supporters were chanting slogans against Shiite Muslims.
Shamzai's funeral was to be held yesterday afternoon, and hundreds were congregating at the seminary to attend it.
No one was arrested for the attack and there was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Karachi -- with 14 million people Pakistan's largest city, and the country's commercial center -- has been the scene of recent sectarian violence and terrorist attacks, including twin car bombings near the US Consul's residence last week. On May 7, a suicide bombing at a Shiite Muslim mosque killed 20 people.
Much of the violence is blamed on Islamic militants, angered by President General Pervez Musharraf's support of the US-led campaign against terrorism in Afghanistan, but clashes between rival Sunnis and Shiites are also common.
Shamzai had met with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at some point before the Sept. 11 attacks on the US, and the reclusive, one-eyed leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammed Omar.
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