As many as 20 people were killed and more than 100 were injured in Pakistan on Friday, authorities said, during protests on a government-declared holiday intended to encourage peaceful rallies against an incendiary YouTube video.
Most of the fatalities and destruction came in the southern port city of Karachi, where Saghir Ahmed, health minister for Sindh province, said 14 people died, including two policemen shot by rioters. At least 80 people were wounded, Roshan Ali Shaikh, the city’s police commissioner, said.
In the northwestern city of Peshawar, rescue workers and other officials said six people were killed, including a policeman and member of a television crew, in rampages that also left about 60 people wounded. Television journalists on the scene said police opened fire with live rounds as mobs torched two movie houses.
In Karachi, officials and journalists at the scene said the marchers burned movie theaters, banks, American food franchises and police vehicles. Hard-line Islamist parties, including two banned factions, joined the protests.
But police and paramilitary troops blocked the crowds — 15,000 strong by some estimates — from reaching the U.S. Consulate.
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