| Submit your comments on this article | |
| India-Pakistan | |
| Bad times return to Karachi | |
| 2009-05-16 | |
Despite Karachi’s decades-old reputation as Pakistan’s most violent city, over the last year this urban economic hub has remained a haven from the bombings and violence in the rest of the country. But a flaring of ethnic clashes in recent weeks, exacerbated by the arrival of thousands of refugees from the violence in northern Pakistan, has many worried that instability has returned to the streets of this massive port city on the shores of the Arabian Sea. Karachi is a migrant city, home to more than 14 million people, drawn from all corners of Pakistan by the promise of economic opportunity. It is members of two of these groups, Pashtuns from the north and Urdu-speaking Mohajirs — descendants of immigrants from India during partition — that have been engaging in violent skirmishes throughout the city in past weeks. “We believe that military operations in northern areas are causing the Taliban to now divert attention to Karachi,” says Haider Abbas Rizvi, of MQM (Muttahida Qaumi Movement), a powerful political party associated with the city’s Mohajirs. “We believe that it is Taliban militants in these [Pashtun] areas encouraging Talibanization in Karachi and creating the violence.” Reports say that the recent fighting sparked after an unidentified man shot three members of the MQM. Karachi gained its reputation for unrest due to similar ethnic violence in the 1980s and 1990s, but renewed clashes have taken on ominous contemporary political undertones as Pashtun communities are suspected of harboring militants in their midst. Reports of gun battles, arsons and the deaths of dozens of people (mostly Pashtuns) in the last week are keeping schools closed, traffic thin, heavily armed rangers patrolling the city and Karachites tense, especially in light of a planned general strike called by Pashtun leadership and scheduled for May 12. Karachi police have reported that recent raids into Pashtun neighborhoods have led to the arrest of militants plotting to attack the city. “We have to go together to the different areas of Karachi and appeal to the local people in the area and ask them to not go along with these militants” says Rizvi, referring to concerns that Pashtun communities in Karachi could provide camouflage for militants “they need to work with the police and the military today and give these people up.” | |
| Posted by:trailing wife |