Pakistan town in uproar after 40 Shiite Muslims shot dead in bus convoy

Angry crowds gathered in the remote Pakistani mountain town of Parachinar on Friday, incensed by an attack on an escorted convoy of buses in which 40 Shiite Muslims died after being sprayed with automatic fire in an ambush.

The Parachinar district, on Pakistan’s northwestern border with Afghanistan, has frequently experienced violence between its Sunni and Shiite Muslim communities over land and power. Travellers to and from the town ride in convoys escorted by security officials.

The region’s Shi’ites, who are in the minority in the predominantly Sunni Muslim nation of 241 million, have also been attacked by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Sunni Islamist militants, who consider them heretics.

Local official Javedullah Mehsud said the death toll from the attack had risen to 40, including eight women, and that 29 people were being treated in hospital, nine of them in critical condition. He and a hospital medical officer said all the dead were Shi’ites.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.