Shia Muslim Hazaras refusing to bury Pakistan bomb dead

PanARMENIAN.Net - Ethnic Hazara women in the Pakistani city of Quetta are refusing to bury the bodies of scores of people killed by a huge bomb in a Shia commercial area, BBC News said.

Shia Muslim Hazaras are furious at what they see as a lack of protection from local and national forces, in the face of repeated attacks.

Saturday February 16 bomb ripped through a busy market district, killing at least 84 and injuring some 169 people.

The huge attack - the second this year - was carried out by Sunni militants. As many as 4,000 women began a sit-in in Quetta, in south-west Pakistan, on Sunday evening.

They blocked a road and refused to carry out the traditional ritual of burying the Hazara dead until action was taken against the bombers, the AFP news agency reported.

One local Shia leader, Qayyum Changezi, told AFP the protesters "will not bury the dead until a targeted operation is launched".

Reports said thousands of angry Hazaras moved the bodies to a local mosque but then began chanting and protesting instead of proceeding with the burials.

Strikes and protests were reported elsewhere in the country as well, including the commercial capital Karachi.