SHIKARPUR-
The Station House Officer (SHO) Lakhi Gate and a head constable were suspended for ‘negligence’ on Saturday following the deadly attack on Masjid-o-Imambargah Karbala-e-Moulla in Shikarpur that killed at least 60 people a day earlier during Friday prayers, private media reported.
Authorities have also taken into custody the constable who was desginated for the security of the targeted Shiite mosque.
A two-member committee has been formed by Inspector General (IG) Sindh Police Ghulam Qadir Thebo to investigate the attack. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Raja Umar Khattab, heading the committee, visited the site along with other police officials today.
Private media added that SSP Khattab, following the examination of the evidence, confirmed that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber and the explosive weighed around five to seven kilograms.
A team of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) also visited the blast site on Saturday.
Cities across Sindh remained shut on a call of a protest against the attack by Majlis Wahdat-ul-Muslimeen (MWM) Pakistan, Shia Ulema Council and Jafaria Alliance. Pakistan Muslim League – Quaid, Pakistan Awami Tehreek, Sunni Ittehad Council, Sunni Alliance have backed the call for strike.
A bomb blast ripped through the mosque as worshippers gathered for Friday prayers, killing at least 60 people and wounding dozens more, in the deadliest act of anti-Shiite violence in two years.
The attack compounds Pakistan’s security challenge to contain a surge in militancy following last month’s killing of 150 people, mostly children, at a Peshawar school.
The militant Sunni group Jundullah claimed responsibility for Friday’s bombing in the city of Shikarpur in Sindh province, 500 kilometers (310 miles) north of the port city of Karachi.
The militant group previously has claimed responsibility for attacks on Shiites and other religious minorities, including a 2013 double suicide bombing of an Anglican church in Peshawar that killed 85 people.
Many Sunni extremists do not consider Shiites, who represent 10 percent to 20 percent of Pakistan’s population, to be true Muslims. Sunni militants in Pakistan have bombed Shiite mosques, killed Shiite pilgrims traveling to neighboring Iran and assassinated Shiite religious figures and community leaders.
Friday’s death toll was the worst against Shiites since January 2013, when a bomb in the neighboring province of Baluchistan killed 81 people in a Shiite area of Quetta. Human rights groups have faulted the government and security services for failing to protect Shiites adequately or pursuing those responsible with sufficient effort.
Sindh ‘at a tipping point’
While Karachi has been the site of repeated bombings blamed on militant groups such as the Pakistani Taliban, much of the rest of Sindh province has been much more peaceful — but experts warn this could be changing rapidly.
An American think tank, the United States Institute of Peace, reported earlier this week that sectarian groups targeting Shiites are building a power base in the traditionally harmonious province.
“The province is at a tipping point. Extremist groups are increasingly active in the central and northern districts, disrupting the pluralistic culture that has long defined the province,” the report found.
” Sectarian militant groups and the antistate Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan are consolidating their presence in the province in rural areas”, it said.
“The government in Islamabad needs to ensure that the province does not become a new base for militants in the same way that FATA and southern Punjab are,” it added.
In July 2013, suicide bombers and gunmen attacked a compound in Sukkur that houses government agencies including the regional offices of the military’s powerful spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, killing three people and wounding dozens more.
