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Pak police officer killed in sectarian violence

A gunman killed an assistant inspector general of police today, the most important victim in two days of sectarian killings of Sunni and Shia Muslims that have claimed 20 lives, police said.

Farooq Haider, who belonged to the minority Shi'ite community, was gunned down outside his residence in downtown Peshawar, capital of the wild North-West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan, by a lone bearded assassin.

NWFP police chief Syed Kamal Shah told reporters the murder appeared to be sectarian.

It happened after gunmen fired at two Shi'ite Muslims in an early morning attack 135 km north of Multan in the Punjab province. One was killed and the other injured, police said, revising their earlier toll of two killed.

The shooting coincided with heightened police security in Karachi where a major Shi'ite party called for a strike to protest against the killing of nine Shi'ite worshippers at a mosque yesterday.

The strike made little impact on businesses and transport. But there was tension in central Karachi where policemen and paramilitary rangers were guarding the venue of a funeral procession for four Sunni religious students gunned down outside a religious school last night.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief yesterday chaired a special three-hour Friday meeting in Islamabad with top administrators of all four provinces to discuss ways to stem the bloodshed.

The reason for the sudden increase in tensions between the Sunni majority and Shi'ite minority after a six-month period of relative calm was not immediately clear.

A leader of the Shi'ite party Tehrik-e-Jafria, Allama Hasan Turabi, yesterday blamed Sipaha-i-Sahaba Pakistan, a militant Sunni group, for the bloodshed and threatened violent reaction from his party's younger activists if the government failed to arrest the attackers.

The SSP denies any involvement in the killings.

Police sources said 97 people were arrested in the Punjab on Friday, mostly members of the militant Sunni group, while officials said Maulana Azam Tariq, a top SSP leader, was taken into protective custody in Lahore.

Sunnis accuse Shi'ite-majority Iran of aiding Shi'ite groups in Pakistan. Shias say Saudi Arabia helps their Sunni rivals. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia deny the charges.

Shias form 15 per cent of Pakistan's more than 134 million population.

UNI

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