Gunmen ambushed a van in the Pakistani port city of Karachi today, killing five Sunni Muslim activists and wounding four in what appeared to be a sectarian attack, police said.
They said the unidentified attackers used automatic weapons and escaped after the morning shooting.
The attack, the worst violence in the latest round of religious killings to hit Pakistan, sparked more violence in the country's commercial capital in which five people were injured and several shops and vehicles set ablaze.
The gunmen opened fire as the van carrying students and teachers to a Sunni seminary, Mr Jamia Farooqia, was crossing a bridge in an eastern district of Karachi, police said.
After the incident, armed men at the Sunni religious school and rivals from a Shi'ite Muslim centre, the Imamia Mission, traded gunfire, injuring five people, they said. A majority of Pakistanis are Sunni Muslims.
Violence later erupted in other parts of the district as bearded activists from the Sunni seminary, protesting against the first shooting, forced people to close their shops in the congested Shah Faisal Colony and lit bonfires, witnesses said.
An army spokesman said troops had been deployed in five districts but were not involved in keeping law and order.
Today's attack followed the killing of a Shi'ite Muslim activist in central Punjab province on Thursday and the murder of an Iranian Shi'ite preacher 10 days ago in Karachi.
Reuters