Good Riddance! Now only if people blindly following these terrorists would open their eyes and realize that all the violence initiated by such incidents will just make their own lives miserable.
KARACHI: The leader of a banned Sunni outfit was shot dead in southern Pakistan on Monday, sparking sectarian rioting in Pakistan’s Karachi and other parts of Sindh, police said.
Allamma Ali Sher Haideri was killed along with one of his associates in the shooting at Pir Jo Goth village, Khairpur district, in southern Sindh, senior police official Pir Muhammed Shah told AFP.
He said the attacker was killed after Haideri’s guards returned fire, and that several of Haideri’s men were wounded in the incident.
Haideri led the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), a Sunni extremist outfit blamed for a string of sectarian attacks across Pakistan against Shiites.
The killing sparked rioting in Karachi, where angry mobs burnt a bus and a car and fired gunshots into the air, witnesses and police said.
‘One of our police officials and two others were injured in the firing by the armed men during rioting,’ city police chief Waseem Ahmad told AFP.
He said police arrested seven men belonging to SSP from a city mosque, and recovered weapons and ammunition from their possession.
Shah said earlier that all shops and business had also shut their doors in Khairpur district.
‘We have deployed a maximum police force in the district while paramilitary Rangers are also there to help us,’ he said.
Life came to standstill as strikes were observed in towns across Sindh and in parts of Punjab, residents said.
‘Police… were deployed in sensitive areas and we are protecting the life and property of the people,’ said Salman Chaudhry, the police chief in Jhang town, where SSP was formed in the early 1980s.
Millat-e-Islamia, or Nation of Islam, was formed in 2002 by members of the notorious Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), a Sunni Muslim organisation that was for years involved in tit-for-tat killings with Shia militants.
The government banned the SSP along with several other militant groups in 2002 after joining the US-led campaign against .
The Millat-e-Islamia was officially banned in 2003 though it has continued to operate.
Mohammad Ahmed Ludhianvi, president of the party, blamed Shias for Haideri’s killing.
‘The attackers were none other than Shi’ites,’ Ludhianvi told Reuters.
DAWN.COM | Provinces | Sipah-i-Sahaba chief Ali Sher Haideri gunned down