Global General

14+ die in target killings in Pakistan's Karachi

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-05-21 14:12

Men carry the coffin of 35-year-old Nasir Hussain, who was killed during clashes recently, in the southern city of Karachi May 20, 2010. [Agencies]

ISLAMABAD - Fourteen more people, including a policeman, were shot and killed in south Pakistan's city of Karachi in fresh incidents of target killings, bringing the death toll to 38 since Tuesday, local media reported Friday.

According to the local newspaper Daily Times, 14 more people were killed on Thursday in attacks in different parts of Karachi, also Pakistan's commercial center.

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Police chief Wasim Ahmed said that 650 people have been arrested in connection with the violence.

Tension gripped the city on Thursday as the government closed educational institutions and exams postponed. Traffic was thin on the road and markets were also closed in several parts of the city, witnesses said.

A Pashtoon leader Shahi Syed alleged that ethnic Pashtoons were targeted in the attacks, accusing provincial governor Dr. Israt-ul- Ebad of behind the violence. The governor's party Mutahida Qaumi Movement rejected the accusations.

Police said that violence started Tuesday night at Shah Faisal Colony neighborhood when gunmen shot dead a person and three other people were killed later in the same locality.

On Wednesday a sudden violence started in the morning when unidentified gunmen killed one person in Gulistan Jauhar area of the city. The gunmen shot dead mostly laborers and poor people in different parts of the city till late night. Miscreants also torched vehicles in the city.

Rival ethnic and political leaders accused each other of violence and several parties called for judicial inquiry.

The Home Minister of Sindh Province of which Karachi is the capital presided over a high level meeting and ordered the police and paramilitary force "Rangers" to take tough action against the miscreants.

Karachi has seen targeted and ethnic violence in the past as several ethnic communities, including Urdu speaking "Mujahir" who migrated from India after partition of the sub-continent in 1947, Pashtoons, Punjabis and Sindhis, are settled in the city.

In January and February some 40 people were killed and dozens of others were injured in ethnic violence, according to police data.

Up to 424 people were killed in Karachi in ethnic violence last year.