SEHWAN: Police have resorted to aerial firing to disperse angry protesters who took to the streets in Sehwan Sharif on Friday to protest the bomb attack which had claimed more than 80 lives in the city a day earlier.
The situation in Sehwan Sharif went from bad to worse as mourners took to the streets and in a fit of rage torched a police vehicle. Police resorted to aerial firing in order to disperse the enraged protesters and thwart them from causing further damage. Most of the protesters were relatives of the deceased who had been killed in Thursday’s suicide bomb attack.
The protest, which began from Lal Shahbaz Qalandar’s shrine, spread to Jahaz Chowk in the city. Since Jahaz Chowk was sealed due to the protest, traffic in the surrounding areas was affected severely.
Outside the shrine, protesters shouted slogans at police, who they said had failed to protect the shrine. “I wish I could have been here and died in the blast last night,” a devastated Ali Hussain told a foreign news agency.
At least 80 people were killed and over 200 injured when a suicide bomber struck in the midst of devotees at the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan town, some 200 kilometres northeast of Karachi. The deadly attack was reminiscent of a near-identical bombing at Dargah Shah Noorani, in Khuzdar district of Balochistan, in November last year.
