At Least 15 Dead in Blast Targeting Shiites in Pakistan: Officials

Karachi: At least 15 people were killed and dozens injured in a suspected suicide blast targeting Shiites in the southern Pakistani city of Jacobabad today, police and hospital officials said.

"Many injured and bodies were brought to the Civil Hospital," senior police officer Zafar Iqbal told AFP, who initially described it as a suicide attack but later said police were still investigating.

Civil Hospital chief Dr Altaf Wagan confirmed that at least 15 bodies and more than 36 injured people had been brought in, and said that more wounded had been shifted to two other hospitals nearby.

The attack came outside the residence of a local Shiite leader as devotees were setting off towards a main procession in the city marking the holy month of Muharram, Iqbal said.

Witnesses described the wounded being rushed to hospital by ambulance and auto-rickshaw. Reports said there were children among the wounded.

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Provincial transport minister Mumtaz Jakharani, who was at the hospital, said that 15 to 20 people were "martyred" in the attack.

He said protesters had gathered at the hospital, with some damaging hospital equipment.

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"The doctors are scared of the agitating people and some of them came out of the hospital," provincial health minister Jam Mehtab Dahar told AFP, confirming that at least 15 people had been killed.

"I call upon the protesters to calm down and help us treat the injured."

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Witnesses said protesters were blocking roads at many spots in the city.

Dahar confirmed that the injured were also sent to the hospital at the Shahbaz Airbase and the Jacobad Institute of Medical Sciences, with some airlifted to the nearby city of Larkana.