PAKISTANI army troops were deployed in Multan yesterday to restore order after 21 people were massacred by gunmen at a Sunni Muslim mosque and a Shia mosque was burned in apparent revenge, officials said.
Witnesses saw at least five armoured personnel carriers and six truckloads of regular troops moving toward the Mumtazabad Colony, a posh district of about 10,000 where the Sunni mosque is located.
The massacre in Al Khair mosque during dawn prayers also left another 48 people hospitalised, officials and witnesses said. Officials said three masked men entered the mosque as prayers began. They engaged in "indiscriminate firing" for 45 minutes before fleeing to a waiting car, they said.
About 200 people were in the mosque at the time of the shooting. Five worshippers died on the spot and 14 succumbed on the way to hospital, officials said. Two others died later in hospital.
President Farooq Ahmed, Leghari and the Prime Minister, Ms Benazir Bhutto, expressed their "deep shock and grief" and condemned the attack, officials said.
The attack triggered sectarian violence and an angry crowd set fire to a mosque belonging to the minority Shia sect and a tent meant for a police picket in the Mumtazabad neighbourhood.
The surge in sectarian tension is bound to compound difficulties for Ms Bhutto, who has been in Karachi mourning the killing of her estranged younger brother.
Rioting and unrest broke out in small towns across Pakistan's southern Sindh province yesterday as young men ransacked two banks and stoned vehicles following the police killing of Murtaza Bhutto.
One of Murtaza Bhutto's supporters was shot and wounded, allegedly by police, and other supporters said they were tear gassed by police in an unprovoked attack.
Small scale rioting occurred throughout the day, as protesters in the Bhuttos's home town, Larkana, burned a truck, stoned passing cars and ransacked two banks and other buildings.
Police declined to comment on the allegations that they attacked supporters of Ms Bhutto's brother. He died after being shot by police late on Friday night in Karachi along with six of his supporters. He was buried near Larkana on Saturday.
Police say his bodyguards fired first and that he was killed in the crossfire, but that version was disputed by both Ms Bhutto and by Murtaza Bhutto's political faction, which opposes his sister's government.
The Prime Minister was quoted by two leading Karachi dailies yesterday as saying her brother's killing was "planned and motivated" and he was not just caught in a crossfire.
She also said his death was "a conspiracy to plunge the entire nation into a crisis", but declined to say who she believed was responsible for the conspiracy, both the News and Dawn dailies said.