The gunning down in Rawalpindi yesterday of the country's high profile Sunni religious leader, Maulana Azam Tariq, could hit the country's sectarian harmony.

Tariq, 42, head of the Sipah-e-Sahab Pakistan (SSP), re-named recently to evade a ban placed in January 2002, was gunned down along near the shrine of Golra Sharif. Tariq was a member of the current National Assembly.

Said Inspector General of Police, Punjab "the body of one passenger has been identified as that of Maulana Azam Tariq."

Tariq and four colleagues were driving through the tollgates when a hail of bullets was fired from an unmarked white vehicle into their car, police said.

"His car had just come through the tollgate and was still in first gear when a volley of bullets burst from the car," police officer Muhammad Khalid said. "The gunmen then jumped out of the Toyota and continued firing close up into Tariq's car."

Said Tariq's personal secretary Rashid Farooqi outside the state-run Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) where the bodies were brought: "I have seen Azam Tariq's dead body among those who were martyred in the attack." Funeral prayers were being held overnight in Islamabad's Lal Mosque.

Tariq, who has been at the centre of the country's Shia-Sunni violence as head of the SSP, a party linked repeatedly to violence against Shias, had survived at least three previous assasination attempts since 1991.

After he was hit by an explosion at the Lahore district courts in 1995, he had lost a leg and walked with an artificial limb.

It is being said among senior police officers that the killing seemed like sectarian "reprisal" possibly by a group angered by the "recent wave of violence in the country against Shias." Recent sectarian violence this year alone in Quetta, Karachi and other cities have claimed over 70 lives.

"Tariq was a high profile Sunni leader, a hero figure for some. His death can lead to a spiral of sectarian violence, not different to the mid-nineties," a senior retired police official said.

Islamist MP Shah Abdul Aziz Naqashbandi meanwhile demanded the government resign over the politician's death.Secretary of the rival Shiite organisation Islami Tehreek Pakistan, Izhar Bokhari too condemned the killing as "a blatant act of terrorism" and denied Shiite involvement. "We do not believe in such acts, we cannot even think of it," Bokhari said.

Mujeebur Rehman Inqalabi, the secretary of a new Sunni organisation formed two months ago, Millat-e-Islamia, also labelled the killing a terrorist act but urged calm.

In Lahore, Liaquat Baloch, a key central leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), described the death of Tariq, who was also an outspoken member of the National Assembly, as a "huge loss and very tragic." A leader of the SSP, Maulana Qasim, speaking from Jhang, Tariq's home town and the birthplace of the SSP, said: "This is outrageous. We are shocked, appalled and deeply grieved."

Even mainstream political leaders feared more sectarian violence. Qasim Zia of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) told Gulf News, "This is the outcome of the government's failure to control law and order."

Javed Hashmi of the Pakistan Muslim League, Nawaz (PML-N) said, "This kind of incidents create more unrest and disharmony."

In Jhang, Tariq's home town and a traditional hotbed of sectarian violence in the Punjab, where the SSP has its headquarters, the news was just reaching people. Police in Lahore had been ordered to put a huge "security curtain" in place in Jhang for the funeral, and when Tariq's body reached the city, possibly today. "We have been asked to place security across all major areas, and we are now engaged in this," said a police official, who added "maximum security" instructions had come in, in anticipation of possible protests and reprisal attacks in the days ahead.

"This is really the worst case scenario as far as controlling sectarian violence goes," another police officer said, adding the death of Azam Tariq "is a huge blow to the effort to maintain sectarian harmony."

HATE CRIME

Tariq: Implicated in many killings
* Headed SSP, which was outlawed in January 2002.
* Jailed for murder, never convicted; ran for parliament as an independent from Jhang.
* He survived three assassination attempts.
* He lost a leg, had an artificial limb after an explosion in 1995.