Ambulances transport the coffins of the victims of an attack on Pakistani Shia Ismaili minority community members to a graveyard for their burial in Karachi yesterday.

AFP/Karachi

Pakistan’s biggest city of Karachi was brought to a standstill yesterday following the massacre of 44 minority Shia Ismaili in the first attack officially claimed by the Islamic State group in the country.
Hundreds of distraught relatives lined the streets around a cemetery in the city’s eastern Safoora Goth area passing the coffins of the men and women who were killed on Wednesday when up to six gunmen stormed a bus and shot them in the head and upper body.
The provincial chief minister had announced a day of mourning as all markets, shops and schools were shut and public transport was suspended.
Schools, colleges and universities also postponed examinations.
The toll from the attack rose from 43 to 44 after a wounded woman died at the city’s Aga Khan hospital, a spokesman told AFP.
Karachi police chief Ghulam Qadir Thebo said the police had rounded up several suspects and most of them were the members of banned militant outfits.
Thebo said: “According to initial investigations, there were six attackers. Three went inside the bus and three remained outside. They fired with 9 mm and Kalashnikov rifles.”
Wednesday’s attack was the first in the country officially claimed by the Islamic State group, which controls swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria.
It was also claimed by local militant faction Jundullah, which reportedly pledged its allegiance to the group last year.
Thebo, the police chief, was cautious about the claims and said the attackers seemed to be locals.
“The attacker seemed to be local and knew the area well. Maybe their handlers were from outside Pakistan,” he said.
“In a previous attack on Bohri community mosque the attackers also left a pamphlet, investigators are looking into whether it is the same group which struck yesterday,” he added, referring to another Shia minority sect.
Wednesday’s attack was the second-deadliest in Pakistan this year after 62 Shias were killed in a suicide bombing in late January.

Imran calls for depoliticising police
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan yesterday said the situation in Karachi could not improve until the police was depoliticised.
“The All Parties Conference was held and the government was given full authority, even the bitter pill of military courts was swallowed so terrorism could be controlled. The question being raised is that even after such a consensus why is all of this taking place,” Khan said.
At least 46 people were killed when gunmen attacked a bus of the Ismaili community near Safoora Chowrangi in Karachi yesterday.
Khan was scheduled to travel to Karachi in the wake of the attack on the Ismaili community but his visit was postponed due to bad weather in the federal capital.