Pakistan bomb targets mosque in rare attack on Bohra community

A bomb exploded outside a Bohra mosque after Friday prayers in the Pakistani financial hub of Karachi, wounding at least a dozen people, television said, the latest in a series of attacks on Muslim minorities.

Police said the bomb had been planted in a motorcycle and timed to go off as prayers ended. TV broadcast pictures of a mangled motorcycle and broken shop fronts.

No group immediately claimed responsibility.

Factions of the Pakistani Taliban, seeking to topple the government and establish strict Islamic rule in the nuclear-armed nation, have claimed attacks on minority Shi’ites in the past few weeks, but attacks on the Bohra community are rare.

Friday’s attack was the first on a Bohra mosque in the southern port city since an incident three years ago, in which seven people were killed.

Last month, 20 people were killed in an attack on a Shi’ite mosque in the northeastern city of Peshawar, while 60 were killed in a Jan. 30 attack on a Shi’ite mosque in the southern province of Sindh.

The government has pledged to crack down on all militant groups, reintroduce the death penalty, set up military courts to speed convictions and widen its military campaign in lawless tribal areas.

Yet Pakistan’s religious minorities, among them Ahmadis, Christians and Hindus, say the government is doing little to stop discrimination and violence in the Sunni-majority country.

Source:: Indian Express