KARACHI (AFX) - At least 29 women and children were killed and dozens injured in a stampede at a religious gathering in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi Sunday, police and hospital officials said.
City police chief Niaz Siddiqui said some 50,000 women and children had gathered for a ceremony to commemorate the birth anniversary Tuesday of the Prophet Mohammad.
The stampede was triggered when a girl fell down stairs while the women were leaving the Sunni Muslim Faizan-e-Madina mosque in the city's eastern district, he said.
Nadeem Qadri, a spokesman for the Dawat-e-Islami party which organised the event, denied rumours that a bomb blast or gun fire had triggered panic in the crowd.
'It was stampede and nothing else,' he told Agence France-Presse. newsdesk@afxnews.com afp/hjp COPYRIGHT Copyright AFX News Limited 2005. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of AFX News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of AFX News. AFX News and AFX Financial News Logo are registered trademarks of AFX News Limited