MULTAN, Oct 8: The city remained peaceful by and large on Friday, a day after the Rasheedabad car bomb blast that left 39 people dead.

Leaders of the outlawed Millat-i-Islamia Pakistan have called Friday as the day to mourn the killings. (The MIP came into being after the government outlawed Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan).

Contingents of police and army jointly carried out flag march in the day in various sensitive areas of the city, including the carnage site of Rasheedabad Colony. Besides, the personnel of law-enforcement agencies were heavily deployed at mosques and imambargahs during the Friday prayers to avert any untoward situation.

Earlier, District Nazim Riaz Husain Qureshi held meetings with the leaders of different sects to urge them to help maintain law and order. Religious leaders condemned the incident irrespective of their sect in their Friday sermons and described it as crime against humanity.

No untoward incident was reported from any part of the city except one or two events of stoning and burning of used tyres at Rasheedabad Chowk and Madni Chowk. However, the law enforcers did not face any difficulty in dispersing the protesters as they were small in number.

The MIP leaders also played a vital role in maintaining law and order in the area. Speaking to press at a mosque in Sameejabad Colony, MIP Secretary General Khadim Dhiloon offered cooperation if the government brought the rival sects on a dialogue table to work out a peace plan. "The differences can be resolved within a week if the government takes a serious initiative," he added.

He said suspension of some officials would not help improve the situation. "We will demand resignations of top government functionaries if someone again tried to make the district officials scapegoat," he maintained.

It may be added here that the Rasheedabad car bomb blast is being assumed reaction of the 'Sialkot massacre' in which 31 people lost their lives. However, Punjab chief minister's adviser on religious affairs Sahibzada Tahir Mehmood Asharfi did not think that two blasts had any link to sectarian rivalry.

"Some vested interest are doing this," he told a news conference here on Friday at the local circuit house. He claimed that the culprits involved in both incidents would soon be unmasked. He put the death toll of the Multan carnage as 40 and told the newsmen that some suspects had been apprehended by the police for interrogation.

When contacted, Nishter Hospital's director emergency Dr Fahim said the death toll was erroneously reported earlier as 40 when a boy Abuzar was counted twice with another name Gulzar due to the mistake of a nurse.

He said after providing emergency treatment Abuzar was shifted to the Ward No 3 where he succumbed to his wounds. Such mistakes do happen in case of crisis like situation, he asserted.

Dr Fahim further said currently 62 of the injured were under treatment at the Nishter Hospital. Meanwhile, Multan DPO Sikander Hayat denied that the police had formally arrested any person in connection with his involvement in the Rasheedabad car bomb blast. "We do have rounded up a number of people only for interrogation for having suspicious characters," he told Dawn.

He said no one among the organizers of the anniversary had so far turned up to lodge the FIR for the incident despite several reminders that the police station concerned could not kept the entries stopped on the roznamcha for a long.

He said the car used in the blast was snatched by one Zeeshan few days ago from the New Multan police station area and a report in this regard was there on the record.

For now, the Multan district Nazim has imposed a ban under section 144 CrPC on public meetings, rallies and movement while carrying arms in the whole district for two days. However, marriage processions and prayer gatherings will be exempted of the ban.