PAKISTAN: SUNNI GROUP SAYS AUTHORITIES HAVE 48 HOURS TO CATCH KARACHI BOMBERS

Karachi, 12 April (AKI) - (by Syed Saleem Shazad) - The Sunni Tehrik movement in Pakistan, whose leadership was wiped out in Tuesday's bombing at a prayer gathering in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, which killed 57 people, has given authorities 48 hours to catch the perpetrators of the attack or face the "anger of the masses."

The call was issued on Wednesday by the movement's interim chief, Shahid Ghauri, in a news conference in Karachi. Sunni Tehrik's leader, Abbas Qadri, and several other of the religious movement's top officials, were killed in the blast in a Karachi park where thousands of worshippers had gathered for evening prayers. Police say the explosive was detonated by a suicide bomber.

But Ghauri rejected the report.

"It is not a sucide attack. It was a calculated move to kill our leaders. By calling it a suicide attack, the government wants to deviate the investigation.

"Everybody knows who the assassins are," Ghauri said. "They are the same who killed our founder, Saleem Qadri," he said referring to Qadri's murder in a 2001 ambush, allegedly planned by a rival group, the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM).

"They are the same who have been killing our members and have been threatening to kill Abbas Qadri," said Ghauri, speaking at the news conference.

"We demand the resignation of the provincial government and an independent inquiry to be carried out only by the military intelligence or the inter-services intelligence. No other inquiry into the case will be accepted," Ghauri said.

Sunni Therik - originally formed as a moderate Sunni group, but increasingly taking more hardline positions - has been locked in a bitter rivalry with the pro-American MQM, which is largely made up of people whose families in 1948 moved from India to Pakistan when the latter came into being.

Funeral prayers for the slain Sunni Tehrik leaders are scheduled for Thursday evening.