TEHRAN, Feb 15: Some 100 people were wounded in two days of clashes in Iran’s religious capital of Qom, pitting mystics against the security forces and hardline supporters of the official brand of Shia Islam, the deputy governor said in comments published on Wednesday.

Thirty-four security personnel were among the wounded in the disturbances on Monday and Tuesday, Qom deputy governor Ahmad Hajizadeh told Tehran newspapers.

“After the destruction of the Shariyat prayer hall and the arrest of 1,200 dervishes (mystics), calm has returned to Qom,” Mr Hajizadeh told the Shargh daily.

“Thirty of the wounded remain in hospital, three of them in serious condition,” he added.

“Those arrested are currently being questioned and apart from the ringleaders, they are gradually being released,” he said, adding that 150 women who had initially been detained had all been freed.

Local authorities said the mystics were members of a Sufi order called the Nematollahi who had failed to heed orders to vacate a prayer hall in the city by a deadline of last Friday.

Mr Hajizadeh charged that the sect’s leaders had reneged on an earlier agreement to respect the deadline and had instead bussed in supporters from around Iran to hold a sit-in in and around the site.

“Eight-five per cent of those who took part in the disturbances did not come from Qom and were armed, some of them with firearms,” he said.

The mysticism followed by an array of Sufi orders since the early centuries of the faith has always aroused suspicion among orthodox Muslims, whether Shia or Sunni.—AFP