Islamabad: The death toll from a suicide bombing in Pakistan's largest city of Karachi has risen to 43, a provincial minister said on Tuesday.
Sindh province health minister Sagheer Ahmad told the media in Karachi that around 100 people were also injured in Monday's attack by a suicide bomber who struck a religious procession.
The people of Karachi mourned the tragic loss of life in the attack on the procession which was part of nationwide commemoration to mark Ashura.
Businesses, markets and offices were closed in the port city with thin traffic on the roads, as the bereaved buried the dead, and police and paramilitary personnel maintained a strong presence.
Following the suicide attack, rioters set fire to shops in two markets, where almost all shops were destroyed causing losses worth millions of rupees, according to media reports.
The reports said the fire at the Light House Market was put out on Monday night while the Boulton Market blaze raged uncontrolled till firefighters were able to subdue it yesterday.
Pre-planned
Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malek told the media that the market fires appeared to be a "pre-planned" act by miscreants.
He said a thorough investigation would be conducted and the government would definitely consider paying compensation for losses after necessary assessment.
Traders in different parts of Sindh province observed partial to complete shut-down in mourning over the Karachi massacre, reports said.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, strongly condemning the Karachi suicide attack, vowed yesterday that terrorism would be crushed.
Talking to the media he said the military was successfully carrying out operations against militants. "I am confident we will win this war," he added.
Flashpoint for violence
- Ashura is the most important date in the Shiite calendar, it draws thousands of people to the streets in cities across Pakistan.
- Shiites make up about 15 per cent of Pakistan's 160 million people. The overwhelming majority are Sunnis.
- Security is usually stepped up in the days leading up to Ashura. But most attacks are carried out by suicide bombers who are almost impossible to stop.
- In 2006, about 40 people were killed in a suicide attack on an Ashura procession in the northwestern town of Hangu. During Ashura in 2003, at least 57 Shiites were killed in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan.
The prime minister appealed to the people of Karachi to remain calm, while the chief of the main opposition PML-N party, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and other politicians also denounced the bombing.
Sharif said it was part of a "conspiracy" to destabilise and weaken the country but the nation would face the challenge boldly and defeat the terrorists.
Security was tight as thousands of people gathered in central Karachi for funerals of some of those killed in Monday's bombing.
Karachi has largely been spared the Taliban-linked violence that has struck much of the rest of the country, a fact that analysts believe is driven by the group's tendency to use the teeming metropolis as a place to rest and raise money. But the city has been the scene of frequent ethnic, political and sectarian violence.
Bomb disposal squad official Munir Shaikh said some 16 kilograms of high explosive were used in the bombing.
With inputs from AP
