Gunmen kill 13 people in Quetta

Published October 4, 2011

Seven others also wounded in the incident.—AP/File photo

QUETTA: Gunmen opened fire on Shia Muslims traveling through southwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing 13 people in the latest apparent sectarian attack to hit the country, police said.

The gunmen who attacked Tuesday were riding on motorbikes and stopped a bus carrying mostly Shia Muslims who were headed to work at a vegetable market on the outskirts of Quetta, said police official Hamid Shakeel.

The attackers forced the people off the bus, made them stand in a line and then opened fire, said Shakeel.

The dead included 12 Shias and one Sunni, he said. Seven people were wounded.

Local TV footage showed relatives wailing at the hospital where the dead and wounded were brought. One relative hugged a wounded man as another walked by, his clothes soaked with blood.

Protestors blocked the main highway on the outskirts of Quetta to protest the killings and set fire to the bus that took the dead and wounded to the hospital.

Opinion

Editorial

Digital growth
Updated 25 Apr, 2024

Digital growth

Democratising digital development will catalyse a rapid, if not immediate, improvement in human development indicators for the underserved segments of the Pakistani citizenry.
Nikah rights
25 Apr, 2024

Nikah rights

THE Supreme Court recently delivered a judgement championing the rights of women within a marriage. The ruling...
Campus crackdowns
25 Apr, 2024

Campus crackdowns

WHILE most Western governments have either been gladly facilitating Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, or meekly...
Ties with Tehran
Updated 24 Apr, 2024

Ties with Tehran

Tomorrow, if ties between Washington and Beijing nosedive, and the US asks Pakistan to reconsider CPEC, will we comply?
Working together
24 Apr, 2024

Working together

PAKISTAN’S democracy seems adrift, and no one understands this better than our politicians. The system has gone...
Farmers’ anxiety
24 Apr, 2024

Farmers’ anxiety

WHEAT prices in Punjab have plummeted far below the minimum support price owing to a bumper harvest, reckless...