50,000 attend Sunni leaders' funerals

Tens of thousands of mourners attended an emotion-charged funeral in Karachi, southern Pakistan, for the top leaders of a moderate Sunni Muslim group slain in this week’s suicide bombing that killed 56 people, police said.

Inching through teeming crowds that thronged southern Karachi streets, ambulances transported the bodies of three top leaders of the Sunni Tekrik (Urdu for Movement) group plus another lower-ranked member to the revered mosque of Alam Shah Bukhari, a Sunni saint.

At least 50,000 people surrounded the mosque where a last-minute decision was made to bury the leaders, a police official said.

The huge, uncontrollable crowds forced the group to opt against taking the coffins on a six-mile procession through Karachi.