FAISALABAD, May 16: One person was killed and 11 others injured, three of them seriously, when members of two religious sects opened fire on each other in Chak 68-GB, Jaranwala tehsil, about 43km from here, on Thursday.

Sources said hundreds of Sunnis, led by prayer leader Maulana Burhanuddin, took out an Eid Miladun Nabi procession from a local mosque. Participants in the procession were on their way to the main bazaar, reciting Darood and chanting religious slogans, when passing by the local Ahle Hadith mosque-cum-madressah, some of its students asked them not to raise slogans in front of the mosque gate. The processionists refused to do so, which resulted in the clash.

Members of the two sects attacked each other with iron rods, sticks and stones. Some of them also traded fire. A dozen people sustained head and chest injuries and were taken to the Tehsil Headquarters Hospital where Islam of the Sunni group died from excessive bleeding.

The injured were identified as Arshad, Saeed, Aslam, Saiful Islam and Burhanuddin of the Sunni group and Abdul Sattar, Ashiq Ali, Shahid, Shakeel, Yaqoob and Abdul Wahid of the Ahle Hadith group. The condition of Saeed, Aslam and Sattar was stated to be critical.

Acting on the report of Aslam, the father of deceased Islam, the Jaranwala police have registered a murder case against a dozen people of the Ahle Hadith group and arrested nine of the accused.

A police contingent has also been deputed at 68-GB to prevent any more unpleasant incident. However, the situation was still tense in the area till the filing of the report.