ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN - Hundreds of Shiite women staged a sit-in in the western city of Quetta on Sunday evening to mourn the 84 people who were killed in an explosion a day earlier in a crowded market there. They demanded that the government arrest the attackers.
Grieving relatives declined to bury their dead until the government promised to track down those responsible for carrying out brazen attacks against Hazaras, a Shiite ethnic minority, in the city.
Protests and sit-ins were also held in other major cities on Sunday, as Shiite leaders condemned the government's inability to curb the killings.
Allama Asghar Askari, a Shiite leader, sharply criticized the country's law enforcement authorities at a rally in the nation's capital. "If the law-enforcement forces had targeted the militant strongholds with real intent, people would not have seen such a day," Askari said to hundreds of protesters.
NEW YORK TIMES
