Source/Credit: The Wall Street Journal
By Zahid Hussain | January 17, 2010
Pakistan Institutes Curfew in Karachi
ISLAMABAD—Pakistan on Sunday placed parts of Karachi, the country's biggest city and financial hub, under curfew after a week of ethnic and political violence left more than 30 people dead.
Rehman Malik, the federal interior minister, said the measure was taken to control the deteriorating law-and-order situation in strife-torn Karachi, which has a population of 18 million. Tensions heightened late Saturday after gunmen killed five people, including a senior member of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, a political party that is a key member of the coalition government in the southern province of Sindh, of which Karachi is the capital.
Badshah Khan, a former local government councilor, was ambushed by two gunmen riding on motorbike in the eastern district of Orangi, which has been a major centre of the violence. A spokesman for the MQM said the murder of Mr. Khan was aimed at stoking violence. Three more people were killed Sunday.
The latest spate of killing appears to be a continuation of the political and ethnic violence that has gripped the city for more than a year. Last year, hundreds of people were killed in what a senior police official said were politically motivated murders.
The violence in Karachi is also fueled by ethnic strife between the Urdu-speaking Mohajir community, represented by the MQM, and Pashtun migrants from northern Pakistan allied with the rival Awami National Party. Police said most of the people killed in the recent violence were Pashtuns.
On Thursday, unidentified gunmen shot dead a television news reporter, Wali Khan Babar, who worked for GEO, Pakistan's largest TV news network. He was ambushed en route to his home. Mr. Babar was a Pashtun from the western province of Baluchistan. The police have yet to arrest anyone in connection with the killing.
Mr. Malik, the interior minister, told reporters Sunday in Karachi that security forces would conduct house-to-house searches for weapons in the areas affected by the violence. The streets were deserted after the curfew announcement.
The spread of violence in the country's largest city adds to concerns about the stability of Pakistan, which already is confronting Islamic extremism and an economic slide.
Earlier this month, a member of an elite police force who is suspected of association with a radical Islamic group killed the governor of Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province.
The suspect said he killed Salman Taseer because of the governor's opposition to blasphemy laws that include the death sentence for those who insult Islam. The killing illuminated widespread support for those laws—and for the suspected killer, Mumtaz Qadri.
On Sunday, gunmen in the southwestern province of Baluchistan attacked and burned two trucks carrying fuel for North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Afghanistan. The predawn attack took place in Kalat, some 230 kilometers, or 144 miles, south of the provincial capital of Quetta. Police said no one was injured.
The latest attack came a day after suspected militants torched 16 fuel tankers in Dera Murad Jamali in the same province. Azam Tariq, a Taliban spokesman, on Saturday claimed responsibility for the assault, which involved eight gunmen.
Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari met briefly on Friday with U.S. President Barack Obama, the White House said; Mr. Zardari was in Washington to attend a memorial service for Richard Holbrooke, Mr. Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some critics of Mr. Zardari in Pakistan have said his travels, at a time of trouble at home shows he is out of touch with the country.
Read original post here: Pakistan Institutes Curfew in Karachi
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for your comments. Any comments irrelevant to the post's subject matter, containing abuses, and/or vulgar language will not be approved.