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Gunmen kill three Shia Muslims in D I Khan
Activists of the Shia-Sunni Action Committee hold banners in front of the Press Club to condemn sectarian violence. –APP Photo/Irfan Mahmood PESHAWAR: Gunmen shot dead three Shia Muslim labourers in a drive-by shooting Monday in Pakistan’s Dera Ismail Khan town, officials said. The assailants riding on a motorbike opened fire on a group of workers at a construction site in the town, local police chief Mohammad Iqbal said. ‘Three of the workers died on the spot and one was wounded. The victims were from the Shia community,’ he told AFP. The Dera Ismail Khan district, which borders Pakistan’s restive tribal region, is a flashpoint for violence between militants from minority Shia and majority Sunni communities. Shias account for some 20 per cent of Pakistan’s mostly Sunni Muslim population of 160 million. Although the two groups usually coexist peacefully, more than 4,000 people have died in outbreaks of sectarian violence since the late 1980s. DAWN:Monday, 25 May, 2009 |
