Quetta husseini mourners laid to rest

By: Ayoub Baloch

QUETTA, Pakistan: Tens of thousands of mourners attended on Thursday the funerals for many of the 53 martyrs demanding top officials resign for failing to stop the killings and condemning the govt for poor arrangements of security during Ashra-e-Muharram.

The mourners marched to a martyrs' burial ground to lay to rest the victims of an attack on an Ashoura Day procession. The martyrs were buried in a walled section of a graveyard on the eastern outskirts of Quetta.

“Down with incompetent administration! Down with the provincial government!” marchers shouted, many of them sobbing with rage and grief. “We salute those who laid down their lives!”

Security was tight during the funeral, with sharpshooters positioned on rooftops.

Quetta remained under a curfew Thursday, with hundreds of soldiers and paramilitary troops in armored personnel carriers patrolling the streets.

Three suspects hurled grenades and fired shots into the procession, then detonated grenades and explosives strapped to their bodies. One of the suspects survived and is in critical condition.

Though most of Pakistan's Sunnis and Shiites brethren live peacefully together, small extremists groups are responsible for frequent attacks. President Musharraf had after issuing Anti-Terrorism Ordinance banned these outfits but they continue their terror activities with new names. TNFJ, the only representative body of Pakistani Shiite, demands from the govt to take measures to curb these banned groups from working with new names.

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