KARACHI, 3 June 2004 — Karachi’s police chief was sacked yesterday after three days of sectarian-linked violence left at least 25 people dead and brought Pakistan’s largest city and commercial center to a standstill.
Sindh Chief Minister Ali Muhammad Maher met with security chiefs to discuss the situation in the city of 14 million people. Afterward, a police spokesman announced that police chief Asad Ashraf Malik was being transferred immediately.
Two other senior officers in neighborhoods hit by mosque bombings and unrest in the past month — Sanullah Abbasi, police chief of Saddar area, and Fayaz Qureshi, police chief of Jamshed Quarters — were also replaced.
Police spokesman Mughis Pirzada gave no explanation for the changes. No replacements were announced.
Karachi was relatively calm yesterday, with only isolated unrest after three nights of mobs burning shops, cars, buses and government buildings.
But many shopkeepers kept their shutters closed and other workers stayed home, not wishing to risk vehicles or lives.
A mob torched one vehicle and hurled rocks at others in the eastern neighborhood of Malir, bringing traffic there to a standstill. But other parts of the city were relatively quiet.
Police freed about 60 of the 150 people they had detained during the unrest, which saw mobs of thousands of youths — some of them apparently organized — exchange gunfire with police and set fire to shops, buses, cars and government buildings.
Mass funerals Tuesday for those killed in the bombings degenerated into another night of burnings and exchanges of gunfire, with gunmen taking rooftop positions to shoot at police and paramilitary rangers. At least four people, all civilians, have died from gunfire.
Police have positioned themselves between neighborhoods dominated by the rival groups and borne the brunt of violence but prevented mobs from clashing.
Abdur Rauf Chaudhry, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, refused to speculate whether Al-Qaeda could be behind the attacks.
But Chaudhry said that the killing of Nizamuddin Shamzai, a pro-Taleban cleric who once met Osama Bin Laden, and the mosque bombing were “inter-linked ... we think they were sectarian incidents.”
Rioters have vented some of their anger at US interests, with mobs chanting “Death to America” and burning KFC and McDonalds fast-food restaurants.
The chaos erupted Sunday after the drive-by assassination of Shamzai. His supporters responded by torching shops and battling with police.
The following evening, what police believe was a suicide bomber wreaked carnage at a Shiite mosque during evening prayers. At least 20 people have died from the blast and 75 were injured. Five are in critical condition with burns over 80 percent of their bodies. No one has claimed responsibility for either attack. President Gen. Pervez Musharraf had promised action on Monday to stop the wave of bloodletting.
According to investigators, 10 kilograms of explosives were used in the suspected suicide attack inside the mosque. Police have collected the limbs and skull of a body, believed to be that of a suicide bomber, and will carry out DNA tests if they deem it necessary, a senior police investigator said.
“A preliminary examination of the blast site suggests some 10 kilograms of composite explosives was used,” the investigator told AFP.
No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing, but police suspect it was carried out by a suicide bomber in revenge for Shamzai’s killing.
On May 7, also in Karachi, a suicide bombing killed 23 people in the Shiite Hyderi mosque. Police said they were examining whether there were any links between the incidents. “There is a strong possibility that the murder of Shamzai could be the result of the Hyderi mosque attack and that the attack on the Ali Raza mosque could be in retaliation for Shamzai’s murder,” an investigator said.
