LAHORE - Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM) has announced to observe three-day countrywide mourning and a complete wheel-jam strike in Sindh province on Saturday (today) to condemn the Shikarpur imambargah incident.
Addressing a press conference at party’s Punjab secretariat on Friday, MWM deputy secretary general Ameen Shaheedi said that innocent people were being killed in the province almost every day but the PPP’s government in Sindh was acting as a silent spectator instead of taking any concrete steps.
On one hand, the Sindh chief minister was assuring the banned groups of taking no action against them, while on the other hand the security cover to MWM leaders was being withdrawn, he maintained.
Ameen also criticised Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for ignoring the victims of Shikarpur incident which amount to appeasing the extremists. He asked the government as to why the hangings of the terrorists had been stopped.
Stating that the police in Sindh have become corrupt and informer of the terrorists, the MWM leader demanded from Pakistan Army and Rangers to stay engaged in eliminating terrorists from Sindh.
He further demanded from the Interior minister to reveal the identities of the 10 per cent seminaries involved in terrorism and take tough action against them.
More than five dozen people were killed and around 50 seriously injured in a powerful explosion at a crowded imambargah during prayers in Shikarpur city of Sindh province. The bombing targeting Shia community was claimed by terrorist group Jundullah, which has earlier been targeting Hazara Shias in Balochistan and carrying out subversive activities in neighbouring Iran.
Television footage of the aftermath showed chaotic rescue scenes as people piled the wounded into cars, motorbikes and rickshaws to take them for treatment. "The area is scattered with blood and flesh and it smells of burnt meat, people are screaming at each other... it is chaos," witness Zahid Noon said. Local resident Mohammad Jehangir said he had "felt the earth move beneath my feet" as he prayed at another mosque around 1.5 kilometre away.