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At Least 12 Dead in Pakistan Political Clashes

By admin | April 10, 2008

Pakistan’s port city of Karachi, also considered as the country’s economic capital, is once again the scene of horrific incidents of violence and vandalism following the thrashing of an opposition politician and a pro-Musharraf lawyer by supporters of the present government.

Independent commentators say the death toll has reached 12, including two women, six lawyers and bystanders, while dozens of public and private buildings and vehicles have also been torched by rioters.
The city is often subject to political tensions in such cases because of the old rivalries between Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Muttahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM) of the self-exiled Altaf Hussain.

Karachi was scene to the worst-ever carnage in recent history on the night of Oct. 16 last year when a powerful bomb ripped through a rally staged by hundreds of thousands of supporters of the late Benazir Bhutto to welcome their leader after her return to Pakistan from a 7-year exile in Dubai. Around 150 people were killed in the blasts at the rally.

Before that, similar scenes were witnessed on May 12 last year when deposed chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry reached Karachi to lead a rally of lawyers being called against President Pervez Musharraf and to drum up support for the reinstatement of Mr. Chaudhry and other fellow judges who were sacked by the (then) military president.

Unidentified armed men opened fire on the lawyers and bystanders killing at least 45 and injuring dozens more besides burning public transport and petrol pumps and destroying private shops, restaurants and hotels.

Officials and locals said the recent two days of violence (April 8 and 9) had left a dozen people dead. The trouble erupted when some people, said to be from the legal community, beat Dr. Sher Afgan Niazi, former minister in the Musharraf government and a lawyer by profession in the city of Lahore. Sher Afgan was surrounded by angry lawyers when they found him at the office of his friend (also a lawyer) to discuss his election petition, it was reported.

Just a day before Sher Afgan’s beating, supporters of the ruling PPP roughed up and thrashed Arbab Ghulam Raheem, chief minister of Pakistan’s Sindh province during the previous pro-Musharraf government, as he entered the Sindh assembly building to join other elected members for an oath-taking.

However, security personnel on the scene came to his rescue. Both incidents have incited supporters of the Pakistan Muslim League Quaid (PML-Q), the pro-Musharraf party. However, it did not react in Lahore or other cities of Pakistan due to the meager support they enjoy among the masses.

In Karachi, which is the stronghold of the MQM, also a pro-Musharraf party, the violence was seen on the streets and the army has also been called in the city to control the situation at the time of filing of this report.

Being a national economic hub, Karachi is also considered a political volcano as any incident — like those seen in recent days — may erupt at any time.

While the PPP-led government in the centre of Pakistan is trying to develop consensus and the party’s co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, is offering olive branches to even his foes, the recent incidents in Karachi are being seen by some independent observers as the handiwork of intelligence agencies, where supporters of the previous administration are still hanging onto some senior slots.

Chief of the Supreme Court Bar Council, the top lawyers’ organisation in Pakistan, Barrister Itizaz Ehsan, said those who attacked Sher Afgan Niazi were not lawyers. According to Ehsan, they were security men in plainclothes who turned a deaf ear to all his passionate appeals not to beat the former minister.

Independent observers also believe that the most recent two incidents — the beatings of Raheem and Afgan — were evidence of a conspiracy by those who wanted to derail democracy in favor of dictatorship.

Speaking on popular talk shows on a number of private TV channels, almost all the independent observers, analysts and government officials condemned the two incidents and agreed that it was a conspiracy against democracy by undemocratic elements and those who wanted to come into power through back channels.

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