DERA GHAZI KHAN Mobs sacked property and protesters called for revenge in central Pakistan on Friday after a bomb killed 33 people near a mosque in one of the countrys deadliest anti-Shia attacks, AFP reports.

Police said 33 people were killed and 52 wounded when a suspected suicide bomb ripped through a crowd near a Shia mosque in the town of Dera Ghazi Khan in the central Punjab province late Thursday.

One person was killed and eight injured Friday during protests in the town of Uch Sharif, 60 kilometres south of Dera Ghazi Khan, police said.

The violence erupted after 70 to 80 Shias took to the streets and threw stones at the shops of Sunni traders.

`Sunni traders also threw stones at Shia protestors and in the scuffle one person was killed and eight others wounded,` local police official Azhar Hameed told AFP, adding police had brought the situation under control.

In Dera Ghazi Khan, schools, shops, businesses and offices were closed following a night of violent protests by Shia students who damaged a police vehicle and broke traffic lights and signs, police and witnesses said.

Angry youths stormed a police office, setting things alight, and smashed windows and damaged furniture in a local bank, said a local police official.

`Less than two dozen angry youths, whose relatives died in yesterdays tragedy were destroying property, but the situation is under control,` said the officer, Ausaf Ali Rana.

But some witnesses accused police of standing back.

`Police were silent spectators. Some youths carrying batons were destroying neon signs, hoardings, shops, a bank and a petrol station,` local trader Yaquob Mirza told AFP by telephone.

Thousands of mourners and government officials attended a mass funeral for people killed in the blast under tight security as police reinforcements patrolled the shuttered streets and the areas around Sunni Muslim mosques.

Although there was no immediate claim for Thursdays blast, police were swift to blame sectarian extremists for what they said was a suicide bombing.

`Part of the face and head of the suspected suicide bomber was found at the blast site and he appeared to be a 18 to 20-year-old bearded man,` said Sardar Zulfikar Khosa, senior adviser to the top elected Punjab official.

He said some 20 suspects had been detained in connection with the attack.

`They were seen distributing hate pamphlets in a videotape, which was recorded by Shias in December,` he said. `However no other evidence has been found yet and the investigation is in progress`.

Hundreds of Shias protested in Multan, the closest sizeable town, about 100 kilometres from Dera Ghazi Khan, denouncing the bombing and demanding the immediate arrest of the culprits, an AFP reporter said.

Dressed in black and beating their chests, some carried banners saying `stop sectarianism` and `we will take revenge` as police looked on.

In Lahore, the provincial capital, more than 200 men, women and children burned tyres and shouted slogans, an AFP reporter said.

`We will avenge our martyrs. We know who the killers are and who is involved in terrorism and extremism,` Qasim Rizvi, a leader of the Shia Imamia Student Organisation, told the crowd.

Shia faithful are observing the last week of a mourning period to commemorate the death of their revered Imam Hussein, who was killed in 680 AD.