Fresh protests in Pakistan over attack on Benazir Bhutto's convoy
Monday, 22 October 2007
KARACHI, Oct 21(AFP): Former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto left a Karachi hospital Sunday where she visited those wounded in last week's deadly suicide attack on her homecoming parade, an AFP correspondent said. About 100 supporters cheered Bhutto, who was making her first public appearance in the streets of Karachi since the bombings that killed 139 people.
Meanwhile: Hundreds of protesters burned tyres and hurled stones in southern Pakistan for a third day Sunday over an attack on former premier Benazir Bhutto's convoy that killed 139 people.
Around 10 groups, each of around 50 people, took to the streets in a stronghold of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party in the southern city of Karachi, an AFP correspondent said.
Some hurled rocks at passing vehicles while others torched piles of tyres, sending thick clouds of smoke into the air in the run-down Lyari neighbourhood of the port city.
Similar protests took place in the cities of Hyderabad, Nawabshah, Sukkur and other native districts of the victims of Thursday's bombing, which came only hours after Bhutto returned from eight years in exile, officials said.
"There are reports about mild protests and burning of tyres in different districts but all these are largely peaceful," Sindh province home secretary Ghulam Mohammad Mohtarram told AFP.
"The situation is under control and there are no reports of violence. Most shops remained closed on Sunday but the total closure is not caused by any violence," he added.
The streets of Karachi, Pakistan's commercial hub with a population of 12 million people, were largely deserted, witnesses said.
Mohtarram said authorities were still investigating the blast "but no clues are yet to be available to proceed on."
He said he had no information about three people whom a senior investigator said were being questioned for possible links to one of the two blasts which hit Bhutto's homecoming caravan.
Meanwhile: Hundreds of protesters burned tyres and hurled stones in southern Pakistan for a third day Sunday over an attack on former premier Benazir Bhutto's convoy that killed 139 people.
Around 10 groups, each of around 50 people, took to the streets in a stronghold of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party in the southern city of Karachi, an AFP correspondent said.
Some hurled rocks at passing vehicles while others torched piles of tyres, sending thick clouds of smoke into the air in the run-down Lyari neighbourhood of the port city.
Similar protests took place in the cities of Hyderabad, Nawabshah, Sukkur and other native districts of the victims of Thursday's bombing, which came only hours after Bhutto returned from eight years in exile, officials said.
"There are reports about mild protests and burning of tyres in different districts but all these are largely peaceful," Sindh province home secretary Ghulam Mohammad Mohtarram told AFP.
"The situation is under control and there are no reports of violence. Most shops remained closed on Sunday but the total closure is not caused by any violence," he added.
The streets of Karachi, Pakistan's commercial hub with a population of 12 million people, were largely deserted, witnesses said.
Mohtarram said authorities were still investigating the blast "but no clues are yet to be available to proceed on."
He said he had no information about three people whom a senior investigator said were being questioned for possible links to one of the two blasts which hit Bhutto's homecoming caravan.