Unidentified gunmen killed a leading pro-Taliban Sunni cleric on Sunday morning in the southern port city of Karachi. Enraged protesters then took to the streets and clashed with the police, according to police officials and news reports.
The cleric, Mufti Nizammudin Shamzai, had worked to bring together Pakistan's warring Islamic sects and was considered one of the country's most powerful Sunni voices.
It was the second high-profile killing of a Sunni cleric in recent months. Last fall, Maulana Azam Tariq, a leading militant, was gunned down on the outskirts of Islamabad. Shiite militants are believed to have carried out that attack.
Violence between Shiite and Sunni Muslims has killed more than 1,200 people in Pakistan during the past 15 years. Sunnis make up 77 percent of the country's population of 150 million. Shiites make up 20 percent.
The southern port city of Karachi, the largest city in the country, with a population of 14 million and the hub of economic and commercial activity, has recently been hard hit by this conflict. On May 7, 22 people were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a Shiite mosque. A police officer was killed and 26 people were wounded on May 26, when two car bombs went off outside a school in Karachi, near the residence of the American Consul General.
President Pervez Musharraf condemned the Sunday attack as an act of terrorism, and religious scholars from all major groups condemned it as an attempt to create chaos.
Mr. Shamzai was killed as he left his apartment along with his son, a nephew and bodyguards, the police said. Three assailants with Kalashnikov rifles opened fire on his double-cabin pickup truck. Mr. Shamzai was pronounced dead at a hospital while his son and driver had minor injuries, police officials said. At least one suspect is believed to have been wounded by the bodyguards, but the assailants escaped.
A soft-spoken religious scholar in his late 70's with a flowing white beard, Mr. Shamzai was in charge of the Binori Complex in Karachi. The complex, established almost five decades ago and spread over more than six acres, houses a huge religious school for more than 2,000 students. More than a dozen branches in the city accommodate another 9,000 pupils, local news reports said.
Mr. Shamzai was an ardent supporter of the Taliban, the former rulers of Afghanistan, and many top Taliban commanders attended his schools. In 2001, he led a delegation of Pakistani clerics to Afghanistan in a failed effort to save Taliban forces from attack by the United States.
His school's best known graduate is Maulana Masood Azhar, leader of the banned militant outfit Jaish-e-Muhammad, or Army of Muhammad, a violent organization now thought to be behind the attempts to assassinate President Musharraf last year. The Pakistani authorities are on a nationwide hunt for Amjad Hussein Farooqi, a member of Jaish-e-Muhammad who is believed to be the operational mastermind behind the two assassination attempts.
The news of the assassination of Mr. Shamzai enraged his thousands of supporters, mostly students at his schools, who clashed with the police. Dozens of rioters were injured as the police used tear gas and batons in response.
A mob attacked a police station and set almost three dozen cars on fire, according to initial news reports. They also attacked a gas station and two bank branches.
There were also reports on a privately owned television channel that protesters had exchanged gunfire with the police. At least three policemen and four protesters were wounded in gunfire exchanges, the police said.