Five religious scholars killed in Karachi terrorist attack

Five religious scholars killed in Karachi terrorist attack
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

JAN 28: Violence erupted in the port city of Karachi after unidentified armed terrorists ambushed a van of a religious school killing five Sunni Muslim clerics, police and witnesses said.

Unruly mob took to the streets, burnt tyres and forced the shopkeepers to close down their shop in protest against the gruesome incident. Police opened fire on the protestors, injuring four people.

Riot police fired tear gas shells to disperse the violent agitationists who had blocked roads.

(An AFP report said quoting officials and witnesses army was called out to quell the rioting by the violent mob. Armed troops in military vehicles blocked a six-km strech from the Karachi's international airport to the violence hit neighbourhood of Shah Faisal colony, they said.)

Sources said some teachers were travelling in a van of a religious school of the Sunni Muslim sect of "Jamia Farooqia" when they were ambushed by unidentified assailants at the Shah Faisal colony of the city. Assailants started firing indiscriminately on inmates of the vehicle from three sides.

No one has claimed responsibility for the shooting.

The killings came a week after the murder of an Iranian religious scholar Aqae Mohammad Sultani in a terrorist attack in Karachi.

Local administration chief Iqbal Hussain Durrani said the bodies of the slain people had been placed in the compound of their madrasa, surrounded by hundreds of residents and angry students.