Blast in Pakistan park kills at least 21

KARACHI, Apr 11 (Reuters) At least 21 people were killed and dozens more wounded in a blast at a park in Pakistan's port city of Karachi today where Sunni Muslim worshippers had gathered to celebrate the birth anniversary of Prophet Mohammad.

Officials at Karachi's Civil Hospital said they had received 21 bodies, but television channels reported another hospital in the southern Pakistani city had received more.

Television pictures showed dead bodies lying on the ground and wounded being taken to hospitals in vans after the explosion.

''What we know at this point is that there was a blast ...

and that there are some injured who are being taken to the hospitals,'' Jehangir Mirza, police inspector general for Sindh province, told Reuters.

''I cannot tell the number of those injured at the moment.'' The blast occurred at Mishtar Park, where a gathering organised by a group belonging to Pakistan's Sunni Muslim majority had gathered for prayers.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility, but sectarian violence between Sunni and minority Shi'ite Muslims has plagued Pakistan, and Karachi in particular, for the past two decades.

Hundreds of people have been killed in religious violence.

In February, at least 40 people were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a Shi'ite procession in the town of Hangu in the country's North West Frontier Province.

REUTERS SRS HS2100