QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) - Gunmen on a motorcycle murdered a minority Shiite Muslim in this southwestern city Wednesday before fleeing, violence that police said was apparently part of a wave of sectarian killings blamed on Sunni militants. The slain man, Ijaz Hussain, an employee at Pakistan Railways, was going to work when assailants opened fire on him, said Pervez Zahoor of Quetta police. | "Take that, Ijaz! BangBangBang!" |
Police on Wednesday arrested three members of two outlawed Sunni militant groups for planning these and other attacks against Shiites in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province. The militants were arrested in separate raids in Jacobabad, about 155 miles southeast of Quetta, said provincial police chief Chaudhry Mohammed Yaqoob. None of the suspects - allegedly members of the Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi organizations - was identified. The government banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in 2001 and Sipah-e-Sahaba a year later. Both groups are accused of attacks against Shiites.
A man claiming to speak for Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility for the shootings. The man, who identified himself as Mohammed Zarar, called the press club in Quetta and warned of more attacks against Shiites in Baluchistan province. Quetta police had no information on the group's claim.
Most of Pakistan's Sunnis and Shiites live peacefully together, but small radical groups on both sides have a violent agenda. About 97 percent of Pakistan's 150 million population is Muslim, and Sunnis outnumber Shiites by a ratio of about 4-1. The divide between Sunnis and Shiites dates back to a seventh-century dispute over who was the true heir to Islam's Prophet Mohammed.