KARACHI: The death toll from Pakistan's violent weekend protests over the killing of Iran's supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes has reached at least 25. The demonstrations against the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei erupted in several major Pakistani cities including Karachi, where hundreds of protesters attempted to storm American diplomatic buildings and clashed with police.
At least 10 people died and over 70 were injured in those rallies, according to the office of the Karachi police surgeon. AFP saw a hospital toll that said nine of the deaths were due to gunshot wounds. In the northern Gilgit-Baltistan region, at least 13 people were killed in clashes between protesters and police, officials said. Of those, seven were killed in Gilgit, a rescue official said, while six others died in Skardu.
Authorities have imposed a late-night curfew until Wednesday in Gilgit and Skardu, where the army has been deployed on the streets. Two more people were killed as thousands gathered in the streets of the capital Islamabad, many holding portraits of Khamenei. On Sunday afternoon, journalists saw police firing tear gas to disperse crowds near the diplomatic enclave housing the US embassy in Islamabad.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who has close ties with both the United States and Iran, said on Sunday that the killing was a "violation" of international law. "It is an age old convention that the Heads of State/Government should not be targeted," Sharif wrote on X. The "people of Pakistan join the people of Iran in their hour of grief and sorrow and extend the most sincere condolences on the martyrdom" of Khamenei, he added. — AFP
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