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Muhammad Najeeb in Islamabad
Police have arrested 11 persons in connection with Sunday's carnage in which 16 Christians were killed in a church in the central Pakistani town of Bahawalpur.
A senior police officer said the suspects were being interrogated. The killings by unidentified gunmen took place in a Roman catholic church during a weekly service.
"It's difficult to say who is behind the killings but we are looking at all the aspects," Shahzad Aurangzeb told Indo-Asian News Service over phone from Bahawalpur.
He said there was a possibility of the involvement of a foreign hand but it was too early to conclude anything. Several political parties had accused India's intelligence agency of masterminding the attack.
Aurangzeb said the culprits would still be in the Bahawalpur area, as all exit points in the city were sealed soon after the incident. Police and army reinforcements were patrolling the streets, he added.
The killings brought condemnation from the leaders of the Roman catholic and Anglican churches, as well as Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who blamed terrorists for the attack.
A witness said six bearded men on three motorcycles rode up to Saint Dominic's Church and pulled out AK-47 assault rifles, shooting a police guard before entering the packed church.
"They were carrying bags and when they came in they took out guns," the witness said. "They opened fire after closing the door," he added.
"We were offering prayers after the Catholic service," one of the survivors said. Those killed were all Pakistanis as the American nuns and other officials of a nearby convent school had left the premises a few minutes before the incident.
Aurangzeb said: "The terrorists may have come to target the Americans, but according to our information they (the Americans) had offered prayers and, according to the schedule, vacated the church for the Pakistani Christians."
There had been fears among the Christian community of a possible retaliation by Islamic fundamentalists following the United States-led strikes on neighbouring Afghanistan. Christians constitute around one percent of Pakistan's 140-million population.
This was the first time in Pakistan's history that so many Christians were killed in an attack on a church. In 1988, a Catholic nun of the same church was killed and later police arrested her servant for the murder.
Some religious and political leaders in Pakistan blamed India's Research and Analysis Wing for the killings.
"There is no doubt that RAW is behind the incident," Hafiz Hussain Ahmad, vice president of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, said. "We consider this attack an act of terrorism in which no Pakistani Muslim can be involved."
The Jamaat-e-Islami said anti-state elements from across the border were responsible for the killings. Ghafoor Ahmed, deputy chief of the Jamaat, expressed sorrow, and said it was a heinous conspiracy against Pakistan.
Khurshid Khokhar, chairman of the Pakistan Minority Inqalabi Tehreek, condemned the killings and said Christians in Pakistan always bore the brunt of misadventures by foreign countries. "We believe that India has committed this act to divide the people of Pakistan," he said.
A leader of Jamiat Mashiekh-e-Pakistan, Maulana Abdul Karim Abid, however, described the carnage as "a conspiracy masterminded by the US and aimed at pitting Pakistanis against each other."
Shah Ahmad Noorani, chief of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan, deplored the failure of intelligence agencies to check terrorist activities and said Muslims living abroad would have to bear the backlash of such acts.
The chief of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Altaf Husain, in a statement from London, termed the killings an act of "open terrorism".
Indo-Asian News Service
ALSO SEE Eighteen Christians massacred in Pakistan The War on Terrorism: The Complete Coverage
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