KARACHI, Pakistan: Gunmen shot and killed a pioneering Pakistani activist in Karachi who helped bring services like sewer and water to the city’s poorest neighborhoods, a police official said yesterday.
The killing was a sign of the escalating chaos that has gripped Pakistan’s largest city.
Perween Rahman, the director of the Orangi Pilot Project, was on her way home Wednesday night when she was shot and killed by gunmen on a motorcycle, said senior police officer Javed Odho.
She was struck four times in the chest and neck and died on the way to the hospital, he said.
Rahman was an architect who left private practice early in her career to help the poor.
The Orangi Pilot Project operated in the squatter slums that make up a huge part of Karachi. The innovative project, started in the 1980s, helped residents of those poor communities build their own sewer and water systems.
The port city is a sprawling metropolis of roughly 18 million people.
It is made up of a mish-mash of essentially illegal land settlements where poor people purchased land from developers and built their homes. Few of these settlements have basic services like sewage lines or running water, let alone access to hospitals or schools.
The Orangi project worked with residents in these areas to build services. It would use their technical expertise to help local residents build things like sewer lines and would lobby the government to build a main sewer line that all the other neighborhoods could connect with.
Gunmen kill activist for poor in Karachi
