ISLAMABAD – At least 33 people have been killed in a fresh outbreak of violence in Pakistan’s southern of Karachi since Wednesday night, police said.
The victims included Ahmed Karimdad, a former PPP member of national assembly, who was targeted by armed men on motorcycles outside a local restaurant. Police termed it a bout of war between criminal gangs operating in Karachi’s oldest neighbourhood of Lyari. Violence erupted on Wednesday evening when five residents of Lyari, a stronghold of president Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party, were found shot dead.
Officials said that violence in the metropolitan is more of a gang war.
“Most of the recent killings happened from clashes between criminal gangs dealing in drugs and extortion rackets. Some of these gangs enjoy political support and backing, but still you cannot term this as a political war as such,” Karachi’s police chief Saud Mirza said. He acknowledged that some of those killed may have been targeted over their ethnic or political affiliation.
With a population exceeding 18 million, Karachi has a long history of ethnic, religious and sectarian violence. The disputes during the past two decades often exploded into battles engulfing entire neighbourhoods.
