Atleast 35 killed and more than 100 injured in karachi violence

[satyam]

http://www.samaa.tv/News23720-Violence_erupts_in_Karachi_35_killed.aspx

Tension gripped the city when media started airing news reports about the assassination of MQM MPA Raza Haider in a drive-by shooting in Nazimabad.

 

[Rebelkid]

Atleast Congress and BJP don't use AK-47's at each other.....

 

[SHASH2K2]

Overnight violence in Pakistan's Sindh province left at least 35 people dead and 80 others injured in incidents of rioting, firing and arson, following the killing of a legislator of the ruling Muthaida Qaumi Movement here.

More than two dozen vehicles, shops, teashops and carts parked on roadsides were set ablaze by rampaging mobs.

Police officials and hospital sources said that since the gunning down of member of the Sindh assembly Raza Haider, 35 people have been killed in incidents of violence in different parts of Karachi and Hyderabad.

This port city was rattled with gunfire, forcing the closure of business centres, shops, petrol pumps and marriage lawns, bringing life to almost a virtual standstill.

Hamid Parihar, police surgeon of the Sindh province said, 31 bodies with gunshot wounds have been received in different hospitals in both the cities. However, the Dawn newspaper said that 35 bodies were received by hospitals.

"We have received around 13 dead bodies and are treating 45 injured people most of them from gunshot wounds," the medico legal officer of the state—owned Jinnah hospital here told PTI.

Dr. Abbas Rizvi at the Abbasi Shaheed hospital said nine dead bodies were brought to the hospital and dozens were being treated for gunshot wounds and other injuries.

"It is a precarious situation and there is trouble in many parts of the city and we have increased the number of policemen and the para—military Rangers patrolling the city," city police chief Waseem Ahmed said.

35—year—old Raza Haider, one of the oldest members of the MQM and a member of the Sindh assembly, was shot dead along with his bodyguard, Khalid Khan when they came to a mosque in Nazimabad to attend the funeral prayers of his friend's mother.

"Four persons riding a motorcycle and in a white car came to the mosque and as Raza Haider was performing ablution they fired at him from close range, it was a clearly a target killing," a senior police official said

Keywords: Pakistan violence, Muthaida Qaumi Movement, Reza Haider, Sindh province.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article549466.ece

 

[ajtr]

Chaos and anarchy​

Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Killings of top leaders or their families in Karachi and Peshawar, the latest being the MQM leader Raza Haider, the almost inhuman and callous indifference of the ruling setup to the miseries and suffering of the flood-hit millions, the boiling rage in people's minds who turn to violent protests, burning vehicles and instant shutdown of business and economic activity, all point to a total lack of confidence in the competence of the present rulers and cast a serious doubt on whether they are capable of giving the country the quality of leadership that is desperately needed in these trying times. The Raza Haider shooting and many others before it invoke an immediate and standard statement from some ministers and other PPP spokespersons but then everything goes back to normal and leaders return to their businesses.

This state of affairs cannot be tolerated and sustained for long. The MQM reaction to the latest killing has been sharp and shows they may have reached the end of the road with their coalition status in Sindh, sitting on the government benches with the PPP and the ANP but blaming these parties for their woes on the streets. The MQM-ANP exchanges of accusations have become blatant and both have taken off their gloves. Names have been named and demands for crushing each other have been made. In his recent speech from London, MQM supremo Altaf Hussain was almost at the edge of crossing all the red lines. ANP leaders have called the MQM a terrorist outfit. In this mayhem, the real terrorists are carrying on with their business of targeted killings with absolute ease. Though all will condemn the murder of Raza Haider and his guard, mere words are no longer enough. The PPP government in Sindh has failed to control the situation and the overwhelming energy deployed by top PPP leadership to control, incapacitate, decimate or destroy all law-enforcing institutions, are not helping democracy or even maintaining the semblance of normal order. Laws meanwhile are being flouted and courts defied. The situation calls for all thinking heads to come together and hammer out some ground rules otherwise anarchy and collapse of the society are not far behind. Major stakeholders have a larger responsibility and a major responsibility to apply the brakes now before even they become helpless spectators.

 

[ajtr]

Pakistan violence: Sparked by Karachi's 300th assassination this year​

The murder of Karachi politician Raza Haider on Monday sparked Pakistan ethnic violence that left at least 35 dead. Haider's murder was one of about 300 assassinations in Pakistan's financial capital so far this year.

Karachi, Pakistan
The murder of a Pakistani politician on Monday sparked deadly riots in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi in which 35 people were killed and at least 80 wounded.The death of Raza Haider, a member of parliament and senior leader of the secular Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) party, is the latest and most high-profile in a series of political assassinations that have deepened ethnic tensions in Pakistan's financial capital. Over 300 people have been assassinated for ethnic or political reasons in Karachi this year. But now, the government claims that militant groups are behind Haider's assassination.

That may be the case, but Pakistani society is seeing a growing degree of both religious and ethnic polarization. There have been attacks by militants on Sufi shrines in other parts of the country. And while retaliation has been limited so far, there were signs of further trouble in the overnight rioting. The MQM represents Karachi's majority Urdu-speaking population and are rivals for political leadership and land ownership with minority Pashtuns who have migrated from northwestern Pakistan seeking employment.

Leaders of the MQM claimed that activists of the Awami National Party (ANP) – who are primarily Pashtuns – were behind the assassination. According to the police, the majority of those killed or injured during retaliatory attacks on Monday night belonged to the Pashtun community.

Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik called Haider's assassination a "trap to destabilize Pakistan" and accused the banned sectarian groups Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ) of organizing the murder to "destabilize Karachi." Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a police official with the Crime Investigation Department said that three suspects in the killing have confessed ties to the SSP.

MQM leaders say Haider's death is evidence of cooperation between the ANP, its Pashtun supporters and extremists. "It doesn't matter whether Haider's killers were from sectarian groups or with the Taliban; the fact is the terrorists are enjoying the patronage of the ANP and they are now jointly targeting the MQM," claims Syed Haider Abbas Rizvi, MQM's deputy parliamentary leader in the National Assembly.

To support his argument Rizvi points to the capture of high-ranking Taliban commanders in Pashtun-dominated areas, among them Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was arrested in Karachi in February. "Militants with commercial interests and Pashtun land mafias have allied on the basis of financial gains," he says.

Since 2008, Pakistani police and intelligence agencies have claimed that the Taliban raise funds for militants based along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Karachi. The MQM has repeatedly warned of the danger of the "Talibanization" of Karachi's Pashtun community. Both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban draw most of their members from the Pashtun ethnic group.

The ANP vehemently denies any involvement with extremist or militant groups. "After [the militants] killed our brothers and colleagues by the hundreds in Swat [and other parts of north-west Pakistan], how could we ever join hands with them?" asks Amin Khattak, general secretary of the ANP's Sindh chapter. Khattak agrees, however, that Haider's assassination is an attempt to stoke ethnic tensions among Karachi's political parties. "Rather than play the blame game," he suggests, "we should identify the culprits and hold them accountable."

The alleged involvement of sectarian militant groups in Karachi's ethnic politics is a new development, although these groups have long been present in the city. The SSP and LJ were held responsible for the bombing of a Shiite religious procession in Karachi on Dec. 30 last year.

Since then, dozens of members of the minority Shiite sect have been killed in incidents of sectarian violence.

"The government has always known of the activities of groups such as the SSP in Karachi," adds Khattak. "If they thought they would target the MQM [which is a coalition partner], they should have clamped down on them by now."

 

[7thcow]

Political violence rages in Karachi, 12 more killed

KARACHI (Reuters) - More than a dozen more people were killed overnight in Pakistan's Karachi, deepening fears of instability in the commercial hub after the killing of a member of the dominant political party in the city.

More...

 

[civfanatic]

Don't you know guys, all of this was set up by RAW, Mossad, CIA, etc.

 

[ajtr]

Political meltdown​

Karachi's situation is getting worse with every passing day despite the government's claims that normalcy is returning. More than 60 people have been killed in the aftermath of MPA Raza Haider's targeted killing on Monday. Karachi is our economic hub and due to the recent wave of violence, suffered a loss of billions of rupees in just one day of lost business activity. Pakistan is already going through a crunch financially; add to it the flood relief efforts and the situation in Karachi and our economic woes are getting worse.

The spate of targeted killings in the largest metropolis is definitely a cause for concern. Despite a heavy presence of the Rangers, the city is too big for the security forces to maintain peace everywhere. There are other worrying aspects to this whole mayhem. As we have previously pointed out, a conflict between the MQM and the ANP in Sindh would inadvertently hurt the government both in the province and at the Centre because they are the PPP government's coalition partners. Interior Minister Rehman Malik accused the Sipah e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) of being behind Raza Haider's murder. Some members of the banned outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) have also been arrested in this regard. The MQM has raised the question why no action was taken when there was intelligence to the effect that some leaders of the MQM were on the jihadis' hit list. Mr Malik maintained that late Raza Haider had been informed and was told "to be vigilant, [we] provided him four persons for security and urged him to avoid public places". We have to realise that it is inherently impossible to guard everyone at all times and when there is a determined body of men who are out to kill someone, it is hard to prevent such a catastrophe. We saw it in the case of late Benazir Bhutto who had threats to her life even before she set foot on Pakistani soil back in 2007. The only thing that can prevent such attacks is if the intelligence agencies are able to penetrate the jihadi networks and pre-empt their attacks. According to some reports, over 10 terrorist groups have reunited in the face of the crackdown being launched against the militants. These groups have had their differences in the past but now they have found a common enemy in the state of Pakistan. Thus, their decision to work together should not come as a surprise because a nexus between the TTP, SSP and the LeJ is a logical possibility. These militant outfits have always had an ideological and theological nexus but it was only because of the differences within the leadership that they were operating separately. If these groups have come together to destabilise the political system, with one stroke they can achieve their purpose, i.e. create a conflict within the Sindh government and in the process lead to a meltdown at the federal level. Thus it is critical that the conflict between the ANP and the MQM be sorted out at the earliest and if the federal government has any intelligence to the effect that it is the militants stoking the fire, it should be shared with both parties. No political party should fall into the trap of the militants and instead there should be reconciliation between the warring coalition partners and the communities that they represent.

The next step is to go after the militants and launch a massive crackdown. The justice system also has to be revamped in order to deal with terrorists. The anti-terror bill presented in the Senate by Mr Malik is a step in the right direction. There are some suggestions to have speedy trials, which should be avoided. Resorting to former US President Bush's foolish illegalities would not serve the purpose. The state has to retain the moral high ground by convictions and punishment through due process. That said, bail should not be granted to terror suspects so that they are not unleashed once again to wreak havoc. Pakistani soil has suffered enough bloodshed. We must not let our guard down at any cost.