Two men gunned down outside Islamabad imambargah

Two people have died in a firing incident outside Imam Bargah in Islamabad’s I-8 sector three people were injured in the incident.

Law enforcement agencies took control and secured the area after receiving the information of the incident while rescue teams transported the injured to the hospital where they are receiving medical treatment.

The details indicate that the firing erupted as people left the Bab-ul-Ilm mosque following evening prayers in Islamabad s I-8 sector.

“Two gunmen approached a water cooler installed outside the mosque s main gate and filled their glasses with water, then opened fire indiscriminately on people as they came out,” local police official Qasim Ahmad told AFP.

He said the gunmen arrived on foot and then ran away after the shooting, disappearing into a nearby greenbelt.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.

According to sources, police officials hold that two unidentified gunmen approached the mosque on a motorcycle and fired shots at the Imam Bargah when worshippers were leaving after prayer the firing resuled in the death of two people including a civil agency’s Naib constable Syed Hubdar Hussain Shah.

The shooting comes days after a military-brokered deal ended weeks-long anti-blasphemy protests in Islamabad that saw seven killed and hundreds wounded in clashes with police.

The violence erupted over the weekend after police and paramilitary forces launched a bungled attempt to clear the sit-in, igniting fresh demonstrations in cities across the country, including in Lahore and Karachi.

“We wanted this protest to end soon after receiving intelligence information that miscreants might try to spark sectarian unrest by carrying out subversion at the protest,” interior minister Ahsan Iqbal told a press conference in Islamabad on Wednesday.

“This was what we have been fearing,” he added.

The previously little-known hardline group Tehreek-i-Labaik Ya Rasool Allah Pakistan staged the demonstration demanding the resignation of Pakistan s law minister Zahid Hamid over a small, hastily-reversed amendment to the oath election candidates must swear.

The demonstrators had linked the alteration to blasphemy, a profoundly sensitive charge in conservative Muslim Pakistan.

The law minister resigned on Monday with protest leaders saying the government had agreed to meet all their demands, sparking fears among many Pakistanis that a potentially dangerous precedent had been set after officials capitulated to a relatively small number of protesters