Religious tensions are on the rise in northwestern Pakistan following a deadly attack on a police-escorted convoy of Shi'ite Muslims that threatened to reignite sectarian violence in a strife-plagued region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.
In the aftermath of the attack on the 200-vehicle convoy traveling from Peshawar to Parachinar, the capital city of the Kurram district, authorities on November 22 imposed a curfew and suspended mobile service in the remote mountainous district.
RFE/RL correspondents on the ground reported on November 22 that heavily armed people set fire to a military checkpoint in the area overnight.
In Parachinar, dozens of angry people carrying automatic weapons were gathering, amid reports that several other facilities of the Pakistani Army and the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary were attacked and destroyed, with RFE/RL correspondents reporting sounds of constant heavy gunfire.
Jamshed Shirazi, a social activist in Parachinar, told RFE/RL that several government installations had been damaged by the angry protesters. "People are expressing their anger by attacking the government offices," Shirazi said.
But Jalal Hussain Bangash, a local Shi'ite leader, voiced dismay at the violence during a Friday Prayer sermon on November 22 and said that Shi'a had nothing to do with the ensuing violence, RFE/RL correspondents on the ground report.
Hamid Hussain, a lawmaker from Kurram in the national parliament, was adamant that the violence was the work of provocateurs.
"We are helpless. Neither Shi'a nor Sunnis are involved in this. This is some other invisible forces who do not want to see peace in the area," Hussain told RFE/RL.
At least 48 people, including several women and children, were killed and more than 40 wounded when gunmen opened fire on November 21 on the convoy of vehicles in the Kurram district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghan border.
SEE ALSO: Gunmen Kill 38 In Attack On Shi'ite Convoy Amid Rising Tensions In NW PakistanLocal leaders told RFE/RL that most of those killed were Shi'a, but at least four Sunnis were also among the dead.
No one has taken responsibility for the attack, the latest in a series of deadly confrontations in Kurram, long known as a hotspot of Shi'ite-Sunni sectarian conflict.
Local tribal leader Malik Dildar Hussain told RFE/RL that there were about 700 people in the convoy.
Tensions in Kurram began to heat up in the past several months, where clashes again erupted between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslim tribes in the area, which was formerly semiautonomous.
On October 12, 17 people were killed in an attack on a convoy, and there have been a handful of deadly attacks since then.
Sunnis and Shi'a live together in Kurram and have clashed violently over land, forests, and other property as well as religion over the years, despite government and law enforcement efforts to build peace.
Minority Shi'ite Muslims have long suffered discrimination and violence in Sunni-majority Pakistan.