Shi’ite protesters in southwestern Pakistan on Tuesday agreed to end three days of demonstrations after the government took action against militants responsible for a bombing targeting their religious minority that killed 89 people.
Frontier Corps conducted a search operation in the city area of Qambrani where at least four suspected militants, including the mastermind of a Quetta bomb attack, were killed in an exchange of fire.
According to Pakistani officials the forces also arrested several other militants during the operations.
The home secretary of Baluchistan province, Akbar Hussain Durrani, and Colonel Maqbool Ahmed from the paramilitary Frontier Corps said the killings and arrests took place during what they called an ongoing operation.
According to Durrani the killed persons were high-profile target killers and were involved in killing of a judge and senior police officers.
The agreement to end the protests was reached in talks Shi’ite Muslim leaders held on February 19 in Quetta with a government delegation sent from the capital, Islamabad.
Allama Amin Shaheede, a Shi’ite leader, said protesters would now bury the victims of the bombing.
Relatives had been refusing to bury the bodies until the government launched an operation against the militants.
