Islamabad, Oct 07: Hundreds of emotionally charged mourners rampaged through the Pakistani capital today after funeral prayers for Sunni extremist MP Azam Tariq, torching buildings, hurling rocks and vowing to avenge his killing. Tariq, federal parliamentarian and former head of the violent pro-Taliban Sipah-e-Sahaba organisation of Sunni Muslim extremists, was gunned down with his driver and three bodyguards as their car entered Islamabad yesterday afternoon. Angry mobs charged through the capital after prayers by some 3,000 mourners in front of the national Parliament, pelting cars with rocks and setting fire to a rival Shiite mosque, a cinema, and petrol pumps, police and witnesses said. "We are trying to control the mob and bring some order," police inspector Nasir Mahmood told reporters. Police gave chase to 300 young men, dressed in long smock and trousers and carrying staffs, after they torched the cinema in the Melody Market and set ablaze a Shiite mosque in Aabpara neighbourhood (Imambargah).
Smoke was billowing from a petrol station where mobs had set fire to jerry cans full of petrol, a reporter present at the scene said.
At least a dozen vehicles were damaged near the cinema.
"We will revenge your martyrdom, we will revenge your killing," mourners chanted earlier at the funeral prayers.
Sunni leader Maulana Abdul Hafeez Hazari led the prayers, which were followed by fiery speeches from fellow clerics close to Tariq.
Bureau Report