9 more killed in Pak sectarian violence

Most of the victims were Shias, which make up about 15 per cent of Pakistan8217;s 134 million people. Most of the rest of the population belong to the Sunni sect.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif blamed Afghan-trained killers for some of the violence.

In the latest incidents, a former vice-president of the Pakistan Medical Association was shot dead in his clinic in Karachi late on Thursday and another doctor was killed while riding a motorcycle.

A third doctor survived after he was shot in a separate attack. All three doctors are Sunnis.

Late on Wednesday, three doctors 8212; two Shias and one Sunni 8212; were shot dead in separate incidents in Karachi.

The Medical Association condemned the attacks and has called a meeting on Saturday.

Shortly after the doctor8217;s murder, a 35-year-old cigarette vendor, a Sunni Muslim, was killed in a drive-by shooting in the same area. The victim was later identified as a former office-bearer of the Sunni Muslim Movement.

Two Sunni Muslim preachers, twin brothers, were killed by motorbike riding gunmen, and a third brother was injured as they were having a snack in the densely populated Naseerabad area, the police said on Friday.

Late on Thursday night, the police found two bullet-riddled bodies in an eastern neighbourhood, while another person was shot dead in the Gulshan-e-Iqbal area.

Two persons were killed and at least 30 injured when a bomb went off in a crowded bus in the city8217;s fashionable Defence Housing Authority area.

Elsewhere in the city, two activists from the Sunni movement were critically injured in shooting incidents.

Police officials said they suspected the killings and a bomb blast were all linked to the sectarian unrest.

The spate of the killings late on Thursday raised the death toll in the sectarian unrest since last week to 44. The total includes 32 shot dead in Karachi and others in central Punjab province and North West Frontier Province.

Tension is running high in Karachi where more than 4,000 people have died in political, ethnic and sectarian violence during the last four years.