Pakistan protesters demand end to killing

18 Feb 2013, 6:51 pm   -   Source: AAP
The UN

The UN "strongly" condemned the bomb blast in southwestern Pakistan that killed 81 people. (AAP)

Up to 4,000 women are participating in a sit-in, after a bomb in Quetta killed 81 members of the minority Shi'ite community.

Thousands of women have refused to bury victims of a bloody bombing and a strike shut down Pakistan's biggest city Karachi as protesters across the country demanded protection for Shi'ite Muslims.

Up to 4,000 women began their sit-in in Quetta on Sunday evening, a day after a bomb in the city killed 81 members of the minority community including nine women and two girls aged seven and nine.

The women blocked a road and refused to bury the dead until authorities take action against the extremists behind the attack, which wounded 178 people.

The bomb, containing nearly a tonne of explosives hidden in a water tanker, tore through a crowded market in Hazara Town, a Shi'ite-dominated area on the edge of the city on Saturday evening.

It was the second deadly blast in the city in little over a month.

The sit-in continued on Monday at Hazara Town and near a local station, said Wazir Khan Nasir, police chief of Quetta which is the capital of the southwestern province of Baluchistan.

"We are going to resume negotiations with the Shi'ite community leaders this morning to convince them to bury the dead," said Nasir.

However a local Shi'ite party leader, Qayyum Changezi, said the protesters "will not bury the dead until a targeted operation is launched".

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the bomb blast and called on authorities to act quickly against those responsible.

Noting that this is the second attack against the minority Shiite community in Quetta in the last few weeks, Ban "calls for swift and determined action against those claiming responsibility and perpetrating such actions", his spokesman Martin Nesirky said.

Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr said his country was "appalled".

"I welcome the condemnation of these attacks by the government of Pakistan and urge swift action to bring the perpetrators to justice," he said on Monday.

Sit-in demonstrations were held in several cities and towns across the country demanding an end to the killing of Shi'ites.

Public transport drivers and traders stopped work in Karachi on Monday after a Shi'ite party called a protest strike, residents said.

Schools were closed, traffic was off the roads and attendance in offices was thin in the city. Several political and religious parties have backed the strike call.

"We will continue our peaceful struggle for protection of the Shi'ite community," said a Shi'ite party leader, Hasan Zafar Naqvi.

Baluchistan has increasingly become a flashpoint for surging sectarian bloodshed between Pakistan's majority Sunni Muslims and Shi'ites, who account for around a fifth of the country's 180 million people.

The attack against the minority Shi'ite community also injured close to 200 people.

The bomb was hidden in a water tanker in a crowded market in Hazara town, a Shi'ite-dominated area on the edge of Quetta.

Pakistan is due to hold a general election in coming months but there are fears that rising sectarian and Islamist violence could force the postponement of polls.

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