PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Eight people were killed on Thursday in gunbattles between rival Muslim sects in a town in Pakistan's North West Frontier province bordering Afghanistan, local officials said.
They said a curfew was imposed on Hangu town, southwest of the provincial capital Peshawar, after clashes there and paramilitary troops were told to shoot curfew-violators on sight.
The violence occurred a day after a Sunni Muslim activist convicted of a 1990 murder of an Iranian official was hanged in the central province of Punjab.
At least one man was killed in clashes between police and protesters at Jhang town in central Punjab after the hanged convict, Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, was buried there.
Thursday's gunbattles at Hangu started after an unidentified man shot dead three Shi'ite Muslim shopkeepers and wounded another person in the main town bazaar, officials said.
"As a result of this incident, gunbattles started in Hangu bazaar in which a few shops were also gutted," a government statement said. "In the exchange of fire heavy weaponry was used."
Officials said those killed in the subsequent battles were from the Sunni sect. The government statement said paramilitary forces were called out to help the civil administration and that an "uneasy calm prevails in the area."
Jhangvi was convicted by an anti-terrorist court in 1991 of the December 19, 1990, murder of Ardeshir Sadegh Ganji, director-general of an Iranian cultural centre in the Punjab provincial capital Lahore.
Sunni groups accuse Shi'ite Iran of financing Pakistani Shi'ite groups, who in turn accuse Sunni Saudi Arabia of aiding their rivals. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia deny the accusations.
There has been a spate of sectarian killings by militants from the majority Sunni and minority Shi'ite sects in Pakistan in recent months. Rivalry between the two main branches of Islam dates from early in the history of the religion.
11:45 03-01-01
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