Hundreds of Shiite Muslims rallied in Pakistan's capital on Sunday, demanding the release of their leader who was arrested late last year over the killing of a lawmaker who belonged to the rival Sunni Muslim sect.
The protesters chanted slogans against the government, and some carried portraits of Shiite cleric Allama Sajid Naqvi, who was arrested last November in connection with the assassination of Maulana Azam Tariq.
Tariq, a pro-government lawmaker, was fatally shot on Oct. 7 as he entered Islamabad in a car for a session of Parliament.
Tariq had been head of a banned extremist Sunni group, Sipah-e-Sahaba, which was suspected of involvement in the killings of hundreds of Shiite Muslims.
Naqvi, the leader of the radical Shiite Tehreek-i-Islami Pakistan group, has denied any role in Tariq's killing and has filed a court petition seeking release.
Most of Pakistan's Sunnis _ a majority in this country _ and its Shiites live peacefully together, but small extremist groups from the two sects have attacked each other in recent years.
Sunday's rally was also called by Naqvi's supporters to protest a March 2 suicide attack on a Shiite religious procession in the southwestern city of Quetta in which at least 44 people died.
Police have arrested dozens of people _ suspected of links with Sipah-e-Sahaba and another outlawed Sunni group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi _ in a probe into the attack, but have yet to identify the masterminds.
A few days before the Quetta killings, another suicide attacker had blown himself up outside a Shiite Mosque in Rawalpindi, a city near Islamabad, killing himself and injuring several other people.
On Sunday, police identified the man who blew himself up as Muzaffar-ur Rahman, and said investigators have gone to his hometown, the northern city of Abbottabad, to continue their probe.
It was unclear whether Rahman belonged to any militant group.