Mourners attend funerals of 7 Shiite teachers in NW Pakistan

Officials reported thousands of mourners attended the mass funeral of seven minority Shiite teachers shot and killed at a school in northern Pakistan on Friday, prompting nationwide criticism.

Mourners protested Thursday’s murders. Unidentified gunmen raided a Kurram school in northeastern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and killed the instructors.

The Shiite professors were killed by radical Sunni insurgent groups. After a Sunni Muslim instructor from the same school was assassinated hours earlier, the teachers were attacked while supervising exams.

The murderers remain unidentified.

Shiite leader Inayat Hussain Toori condemned the deaths on Friday.

“We want justice and we don’t know who is behind it,” Toori said, adding that 10,000 Shiites demonstrated in Parachinar, a Kurram district center, over the killings of their professors.

He asked the government for justice.

A day after Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif condemned the deaths and requested a probe, he commented.
Kurram buried the Sunni teacher earlier.

Since the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) ended a truce with the government last year, terrorist bloodshed in Pakistan has increased. TTP is separate but affiliated with the Afghan Taliban. Since taking power in August 2021, Pakistani Taliban have grown stronger.