KARACHI/ISLAMABAD, 14 May 2007 — The government authorized paramilitary troops yesterday to shoot anyone involved in serious violence in Karachi, where 37 people have been killed over the past two days, an official said.
On Saturday, 34 people were killed and more than 130 wounded in the country’s worst political street violence in two decades, sparked when Pakistan’s suspended top judge tried to meet supporters in the southern city.
Violence between pro-government and opposition activists eased yesterday but three people were killed in separate incidents and protesters set fire to several shops and cars.
Government attempts to remove Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry over unspecified accusations of misconduct on March 9 have outraged the judiciary and the opposition.
The judicial crisis has snowballed into a campaign against President Pervez Musharraf and is the most serious challenge to the authority of the president, who is also army chief, since he seized power in 1999.
But the violence in Pakistan’s biggest city sparked by the judge’s visit has raised the specter of bloody ethnic feuding that plagued Karachi in the 1980s and 1990s.
“We have increased the presence of Rangers in the city and have told them to arrest or shoot anyone involved in violence and riots threatening life or property,” Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah told Reuters, referring to a paramilitary force.
“The events of yesterday were very serious and violent. The whole city was paralyzed and many precious lives lost,” he said. “We don’t want a repeat.” Two political activists, one from an opposition party and one from the pro-government Muttaheda Qaumi Movement (MQM), which runs Karachi, were killed yesterday. The body of a third man, shot in the head, was found in a volatile neighborhood.
A number of shops and petrol pumps were set on fire by miscreants in the city yesterday. Vehicles were off the roads and businesses remained closed. Despite the presence of police and paramilitary Rangers, protesters in Patel Para, Lasbela, Orangi Town, Banaras, Sohrab Goth and Super Highway burned tires and pelted vehicles with stones.
Shops and petrol pumps were set on fire in Gulbarg and Water Pump areas.
Mourners at the funeral of two members of an opposition religious alliance shouted anti-Musharraf slogans and called for an Islamic revolution as the bodies, draped in party flags, were carried away for burial.
The police have been widely criticized for failing to stop the clashes between members of the MQM, which opposed Chaudhry’s visit, and its old enemies including the religious alliance and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
Most of those killed were members of the PPP and the opposition Awami National Party (ANP), which represents ethnic Pashtuns.
Provincial ANP President Afrasiab Khattak said he feared ethnic violence: “If they fail to control militancy it will divide Karachi on ethnic lines.” But a PPP leader played down the fear.
“I don’t think it’s ethnic violence, it’s government supporters trying to beat the opposition into submission,” said Raza Rabbani, leader of the opposition in the upper house.
The opposition parties observed “black day” across the country yesterday to protest the killings. They have also given call for a strike today.
Supporters of Musharraf insist he is strong and popular, but the opposition says his popularity is on the wane. “He is not popular. He has unleashed Mutteheda Qaumi Movement to attack peaceful rallies of other parties,” Imran Khan told Arab News.
PPP leader Shah Mehmood Qureshi said the PPP activists offered funeral prayers in different cities for those killed in Karachi violence on Saturday.
In the wake of the violence in Karachi, the Punjab government has put police on high alert throughout the province.
— With input from agencies
