Shia Muslim Leader Is Gunned Down in Pakistan

A Shia Muslim leader who headed an opposition political party was shot and killed by several men Friday, party officials said.

Arif Hussain Hussaini, 45, was slain as he left a mosque in Peshawar following morning prayers, said the party officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. No person or group immediately claimed responsibility.

Hussaini’s death touched off a riot by 500 supporters who stoned cars and buses in the eastern city of Lahore before riot police dispersed them with tear gas.

Hussaini, head of the opposition party called the Movement for Enforcement of Shia Jurisprudence, was a leader of Shia Muslims, a minority in Pakistan where most people are Sunni Muslims.

Hussaini’s party issued a statement calling the assassination a “calculated move and a conspiracy to plunge Pakistan into civil war.”

A resolution passed by the Punjab branch of Pakistan’s leading opposition party, the Pakistan People’s Party, said the killing was an attempt to thwart opposition demands concerning the Nov. 16 general election.

President Zia ul-Haq dismissed the civilian government May 29 and called the general election in which candidates will be forced to run as individuals, rather than as members of a political party. Opposition parties say this condition is unfair to their candidates.

In the mid-1970s, Hussaini was expelled from Iraq, which also has a Shia minority, after being accused of stirring anti-government unrest.

He later studied in Iran, where Shias are in the majority, and returned to Pakistan after the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini came to power in Iran in 1979.