Security forces across Pakistan's Northern Areas are on high alert after a senior Shia leader died of wounds sustained in a weekend gun attack.
Agha Ziauddin was critically injured on Saturday when gunmen opened fire on his car in the city of Gilgit.
Tensions are high ahead of his funeral, expected on Friday. A curfew in Gilgit has been extended to nearby Skardu.
The attack on Mr Ziauddin triggered widespread disturbances in which 15 people died before order was restored.
" [He] died this morning in hospital and we are taking his body back to Gilgit "
Bad weather prevented attempts to return his body to Gilgit by helicopter on Thursday.
Another attempt will be made on Friday. The authorities say only close family will be allowed at the funeral.
Security increased
Doctors battled for three days at Rawalpindi's military hospital to save Mr Ziauddin, carrying out operations to remove bullets from his head and neck.
But he succumbed to his injuries early on Thursday.
As news of his death reached his hometown, hundreds of Shia protesters took to the streets in the region's second biggest city, Skardu, and other towns.
The authorities responded swiftly, imposing a curfew in Skardu and sending troops to the nearby towns of Hunza and Chilas.
"It is natural for people to be upset by Mr Ziauddin's death," the Northern Areas Minister, Faisal Saleh Hayat, told the BBC.
"But I appeal to people to keep calm."
The minister said that paramilitary troops had been deployed across the area to prevent sectarian violence.
In recent years Pakistan has seen spiralling violence between Sunni and Shia groups. More than 4,000 people have died in the fighting since 1980.
Mr Ziauddin had led a campaign for the last few years to have a separate Shia curriculum introduced for his community.
He was travelling by car to a mosque in the centre of Gilgit when the attack took place. He was shot twice.
Police say that the identity of the attackers is unclear, although they believe it was a sectarian incident.
Mr Ziauddin's two armed guards and one of the attackers were killed in the shoot-out.
Burnt alive
Shops and offices in the Gilgit area - which has a large Shia population - have remained shut since the weekend violence, with troops patrolling the streets and guarding key government installations and places of worship.
Several government buildings were set on fire.
In one attack, a forestry officer and five members of his family were burnt alive when a mob torched a government office and its adjacent houses.
Shias form a sizeable majority in the mountainous northern areas, but are a minority in most other parts of the country.
The BBC's Zaffar Abbas says that sectarian violence in the Northern Areas is often exacerbated because Shias and Sunnis are divided along tribal lines as well.
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