Study – Karachi Violence

Source

Date

Statement By

Statement

• Gang wars, poverty, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), football and, maybe, boxing are the notions usually associated with Lyari, one of Karachi’s oldest neighbourhoods. There is, however, more to Lyari than these stereotypes.
• Historically, the inhabitants of Lyari were among the first settlers Karachi.
•  In her book “The Dual City: Karachi During the Raj,” renowned architect Yasmeen Lari writes: “By 1890 the population of Lyari had already reached 24,600.” These figures are indicative of Lyari’s high population rates even before the notion of partition emerged. Even today, the area remains among the most densely populated, with the highest ratio of inhabitants-per-square-kilometre.
•  Some of the most popular names to have been associated with Lyari include Hussain Shah (Olympic boxer), Umar Baloch, Ghulam Abbas and Ustaad Qasim (footballers), Waja Ghulam Muhammad Noor ud Din (educationist), Syed Sajjad Ali Shah (former Chief Justice), Waja Khair Mohammad Nadvi (scholar who translated Quran into Balochi language) and Sikandar Baloch (former Mr Pakistan in body building).

• The TTP has a visible and strong presence in Karachi. However,Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah’s and the Police’s allegationsregarding a PAC-BLA nexus, without any significant evidence, gives anindication of the intention behind the present ‘grand operation’.Significantly, Baloch nationalist parties, such as the Jamhoori Watan Party(JWP), Balochistan National Party (BNP), BNP-Awami Asad Baloch, have stageddemonstrations in various Districts of Balochistan to protest against what theycalled the ‘targeted operation’ in Lyari against Baloch people and leaders, whoare in majority in the area. The operation, it is alleged, had assumed theshape of an anti-Baloch movement, with BNP Information Secretary Agha Hassandeclaring that the Lyari operations were part of the “genocide of the Baloch”. “Theexcessive use of force against the Baloch, which had started from Balochistan,has now been extended to Karachi,” Agha claimed. Talking about the impendingthreat, an unnamed local journalist from the Baloch community, noted that the‘Lyari action’ would create a backlash against the PPP Government, just as theLal Masjid operation did, against General Musharraf.

• The situation has crossed a point where mere distribution of money could reverse the public uprising in Lyari. While the PPP’s growing unpopularity in Lyari is noteworthy, it is equally fascinating to speculate who will emerge as a replacement to the PPP in Liyari.  Uzair Baloch, head of the PAC, has promised to contest elections against PPP’s co-chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of President Asif Ali Zardari. This is an extraordinary decision considering the fact that Mr. Baloch is too popular among the youth of his town while the PPP government views him as the ‘most wanted’ of Lyari.
• The lesson from Lyari is clear: The Balochs have to stand up for their rights and identity. In the long term, democratic Baloch parties, not armed gangs, must emerge  to represent the people of Liyari. It is for the people of the area to decide whether they would welcome the Balochistan-based political parties inside Liyari or they create a new democratic front to guard their own interest. This is indeed the time for some important decisions in Liqyari’s politics.

• The issue of ongoing Lyari operation dominated the Sindh Assembly proceedings on Thursday, with at least three senior lawmakers belonging to the Pakistan People’s Party and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement tracing the history of derailment of peace in the city’s oldest neighbourhood and explaining the causes that finally led to the police action.
•  The issue was highlighted in the assembly just a day after the ancestral home of PPP Minister Rafique Ahmad Engineer in Lyari was looted and set on fire.
• Lyari that used to be a cradle of peace and progressive movements in the city had been turned into a hub of criminal activities by a handful of gangsters, legislators said. They added that the area produced world-class footballers and boxers until gangsters took its control and deprived the people of proper education, medical and sports facilities.

• As the death toll continues to climb in a police operation in the densely-populated Lyari neighbourhood of Karachi, gangsters regained control of areas which the police claimed to have cleared on Saturday. On Sunday, police had to pull back from the Nawa Lane and Afshani Gali areas after day-long fierce battles with gangsters who used heavy weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), hand grenades and the locally-made ‘Awan’.

News

• A new spate of violence that erupted across Karachi on Friday resulted in three deaths, Express News reported. A man was killed while his children sustained injuries when a stray rocket struck his house in the Lea Market area of Lyari. A schoolteacher, identified as Iftikhar, was shot dead in an earlier firing incident in the Baldia town area of Lyari.
•  In a separate incident, a 50-year-old man died and two others were injured in a hand grenade attack within the limits of Eidgah police station.
•  Violence erupted in Lyari this morning as protestors burnt tyres and forced owners to shut down shops to protest against raids and operations by law enforcement agencies.

News Item

• The Sindh government on Wednesday ordered judicial inquiry into violence erupted in the city after death of three Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) workers, while Sindh Chief Minister (CM) Syed Qaim Ali Shah has said that the regime would also start political dialogue for maintaining peace in the city.

News Item

•  It was another unruly day for the people of Karachi as the killing of an Awami National Party (ANP) worker on Wednesday added fuel to the unrest that began a day earlier after the murder of an MQM activist.
• Three people were shot dead, at least seven vehicles set on fire while gun battles were continuing in several city areas after unidentified gunmen shot dead Zainullah Khan, in-charge of ANP’s Patel Para ward.

News Item

• Anti-Violence Crime Cell (AVCC) apprehended five alleged abductors and recovered weapons from their possession, while recovering a kidnapped person.
• As per a release issued on Wednesday, the police arrested accused Mohsin, Abdullah Brohi, Iqbal, Rajo Gopang, and Qurban Khokhar while recovering abductee Naeem Mughal from Steel Town, Gulshan-e-Hadeed area. Mughal was kidnapped on March 19 and ransom of Rs50mn demanded from the family.
• However, a deal was settled at Rs5 million and at the time when the accused came out of their hideout to receive the ransom money, police raided and captured them. According to police the accused had also kidnapped on Dr Prem Chand form Gulshane-e-Hadeed and received ransom money in Dera Murad Jamali. They were wanted to police in more 20 kidnapping cases.

Jawwad Rizvi

• The federal government is considering to allow a trade corridor to India for import and export of its goods using the Karachi Port via the Wagah land route, The News has learnt.
• Giving a trade corridor to India will reduce the transportation time to Indian goods consignments bound for the Indian Punjab and reduce the travelling distance of almost 700 kms.

News item

• Demanding concrete steps to bring an end to the killing of Shias in different cities, Majlis-i-Wahdat-i-Muslimeen leaders on Sunday declared that they would foil foreign conspiracies aimed at fomenting unrest in the country.
• Speaking at a large gathering of people, who had converged at the Nishtar Park to attend the ‘Quran aur Ahl-i-Bait’ conference, they said that Pakistan’s prosperity was based on the unity of its people.
• Opposing the restoration of supplies to the US-led Nato forces in Afghanistan, they said the imperialist forces wanted civil wars in all Muslim countries, let alone Pakistan, to exploit their resources.

Naziha Syed Ali

• According to official police records, 19 Sunnis — virtually all SSP activists — and 13 Shias were killed in Karachi last year on sectarian grounds. However, the total number of murdered SSP activists cited by the organisation itself is twice as high. The same is the case with the Jaffria Alliance which maintains a record of Shias killed on sectarian grounds. Police officials concede that their own list may well be incomplete.

17.06.07

Rizwana Naqvi

• The decade of the 1990s was marked by terrorism and bloodshed as a result of which the city changed. People from all walks of life such as doctors, poets and journalists recount their experiences.
• During the past 20 years, Karachi has seen many instances of violence and the disruption of civic life. Sectarian strife and easy availability of weapons are two factors that play a key role in this regard. Arif Hasan has tried to analyse the Mohajir-Sindhi tension, while Mark Tully looks into the arms and weapons issue in the South Asian context.

• The linguistic distribution of the city in 1998 census is: Urdu speaking 48.52%; Punjabi 13.94%; Sindhi 7.22%; Pashto 11.42%; Balochi4.34%; Seraiki2.11%; others 12.4%.

• Target killings of non-Baloch settlers, particularly rendering technical expertise are being carried out by radical elements with perverted mind who want to set an impression that non Bloch community is intolerable by the locals of province.

S Balakrishnan

• From being a retail extortionist to being the third most wanted don of the world, Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar (54) has indeed come a long, long way in a highly-globalised underworld. Said Munawar Amin, a long-time resident of Bhendi Bazar, in whose mean streets Dawood, son of a constable, grew up: “Along with his brother Shabbir, he used to extort money from the Moplah businessmen who sell smuggled goods in our area. Nobody visualised that he would go up so high in mafiadom.” With his headquarters in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, the elusive Dawood today commands a transnational empire, whose current net worth is placed by intelligence agencies at Rs 4 lakh crore. His family lives with him, but the ISI does not permit him to fly out of Pakistan with his family in tow

• There are 183 seminaries in Karachi with 1,740 teachers, 55,652 local and 5,293 foreign students,

• Anti-Shia groups in Pakistan include the Lashkar i Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, offshoots of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI). The groups demand the expulsion of all Shias from Pakistan and have killed hundreds of Pakistani Shias between 1996 and 1999. As in Iraq they “targeted Shia in their holy places and mosques, especially during times of communal prayer.”

• The current situation in the province could complicate the ethnic tensions between the Mohajirs and Pashtuns. The large Pashtun population in Karachi can be exploited by rogue elements to bring the commercial city to a grinding halt. The ruling MQM party already seems nervous, and at a time when the province is suffering from divisive internal politics, any further worsening of the situation may not be desirable

Hafiz Akif Saeed, amir of Tanzeem-e-Islami

•  Indian intelligence agency RAW and other foreign secret agencies are involved in the ongoing spate of terrorism in Pakistan, but the local rulers are not taking effective steps to rein in these enemies of Pakistan. Addressing a press conference at Karachi Press Club (KCP) here on Saturday, he said in the past Pakistan had suffered a lot due to violent sectarian strife and it was later found that the Indian secret agency RAW was behind it.

•  Investigators probing the tragic incidents claimed that some foreign hands were involved in the arson as within 10 minutes of the blast, the miscreants had systematically attacked shops, looted them and torched Karachi’s biggest markets including Bolton Market, Light House, Paper Market and Medicine Market.
• Sources said during initial investigations, it was found that some chemicals were used to torch the markets. The chemicals were the same that were used on December 27, 2007 following the killing of Benazir Bhutto to torch railway stations and trains in Interior Sindh. The chemical is so dangerous that once it is thrown upon cars or shops, it catches fire in seconds

• Some blame it to MQM that they did it to find an excuse to target the Pushtoon population and to ignite hatred towards Jamat-e-Islami. Some say that it was done by ANP or JI to prove MQM a failure in the cosmopolitan.

• Then there are reports that chemical accelerants were used in setting the fires that were still burning on Wednesday. At least one fire department official believes there are “visible signs” that phosphorus was used in Monday’s acts of arson. If so, the ‘pre-planned’ theory may gain further ground. Needless to say, Ashura mourners are unlikely to be carrying phosphorous on their persons.

Faisal Aziz

• The bloodshed illustrated how the Taliban, whose bastions are in the tribal, lawless northwest, have extended their reach to major cities in their drive to topple the government. The militants, analysts say, are bent on destabilising the state and Karachi provides them with a highly visible target. Such attacks may signal new Taliban priorities.
• The suicide bomber attacked a Shi’ite procession despite heavy security. Angry residents torched hundreds of shops, an image carried repeatedly on local television stations, creating the impression that security forces had lost control.

• Sindh police chief Kamal Sha has said that this is war between the law enforcement agencies and terrorists.
• Sunni-Shia sectarian violence has killed as many as 4,000 people in the past 15 years in Pakistan.

• Pakistani intelligence authorities have also detected that RAW was even involved in Monday’s carnage at Karachi in which, after a suicidal attack on a procession, through a well calculated and pre-planned exercise, a hell of fire was unleashed in the top commercial area of the city which caused huge financial loss, estimated to be over 5 billion rupees in less than a five hours’ time. The Daily Mail’s investigations indicate that the authorities have discovered certain potassium chlorate based explosives, manufactured by Vaigai Industries, Madurai district of Tamil Nadu India.

Huma Yusuf

•  Political parties in Karachi have been asking the Sindh government to intervene and prevent targeted political killings, of which there have been over 250 in the past six months. Malik, meanwhile, has accused ‘actors’ not affiliated with political parties of trying to fracture the ruling coalition. With particular reference to violence in Lyari, Malik has dismissed it as a familial dispute surrounding a girl’s ‘illicit relations’ while city government officials have pointed to long-running gang warfare in that area. For their part, the police, in many incidents, claim no knowledge about the perpetrators’ identities, motives or their access to arms.
• The fact is, since June last year, when one of Baitullah Mehsud’s aides was apprehended, the police have been detaining TTP-linked militants in Karachi with some regularity. However, the criminal investigation department (CID) officials have been careful to reiterate that the situation here is murky, with many militant groups uniting under the Taliban banner and drawing recruits from Urdu-, Pushto-, and Punjabi-speaking communities as well as the Bengali community.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik

•  He informed National Assembly that according to initial reports, a banned organisation — Laskhar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) — has been found involved in the Karachi Ashura procession blast.

•  After the blast a group of terrorists appeared and they created chaos in city. They violated law but law enforcement agencies remained silent spectacles.
• Terrorists were looting shops and markets but there was nobody to stop them

•  Police and Rangers were present on occasion but they didn’t stop terrorists. Terrorists were free to do anything.
• Vehicles of fire brigade didn’t reach in time.

•  Police and rangers were not allowed to perform their duties for 2 hours which was part of their strategy. According to strategy of police if they would have performed their duty then the procession would have raged and there would have been more damaged. I have footages that right after 7 minutes of the blast police is going back from the place of occurrence.
• When police and ranger left the place and handed over the acre to looter, therefore when fire brigade reached there they were beaten

Moeed Pirzada. 

•  Right 39 minutes a group reached which distributed phosphorus and chemical to the violent people and gloves so that their hands should not damaged, it seems a thought process has been completed and a plan has been made to destroy the shops. Now this group have iron rods in their hands instead of wooden sticks and cutter which helped them to unlock the shops. These people have patrol in their hands and are talking on mobile for coordination with each other. It seems there were some leaders amongst these people. Ranger and police disappeared from the place.

Faisal Raza Abidi, PPP

•  I would say that city government and police have done good preparations for any unseen thing.
• We condemn the deaths of innocent people, whether they are civilian or armed forces.
• Action should be taken against underground training camps of Madrassas; we should curb the militancy and terrorism.

•  I am not proud of what I have said yesterday, but despite our efforts we have been criticised by the different people that our city Govt have been involved.
• JI had collaboration with ALQ and other militants; they are agent of Jews and Christians. They have collaboration with black waters.

•  London Post had revealed that blackwaters and MQM had collaboration for the mayhem in Karachi; most of the gutted shops were of Pushtuns and Memons.
•  We are ready to work together with other political parties. We had no links with the ALQ or any other terrorists group.
•  The people who have been involved in the malicious activities should be apprehended.

07.01.10

Chidanand Rajghatta

•  Nearly 17 years after Dawood Ibrahim’s infamous D-company fled to Karachi after devastating Mumbai with serial bomb attacks that killed 258 people, the United States has highlighted Pakistan’s patronage of the underworld don and said the “criminal-terrorism fusion model” he represents is “a credible threat to US interests in South Asia.” A US Congressional report released Tuesday identified the D-company as a “5,000-member criminal syndicate operating mostly in Pakistan, India, and the United Arab Emirates,” which has a “strategic alliance” with ISI and has “forged relationships with Islamists, including Lashkar-e-Taiba and al-Qaida.”

Asma Jahangir, chairwoman of HRCP

•  This was a preplanned assault on civil society.
• IRIN from the Punjab city of Lahore, placing responsibility for this weekend’s violence squarely at the doorstep of Pakistan’s top military leader who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1991, as well as members of the MQM and the country’s provincial Sindh government.
• “It was a militant act to deny people their freedom of expression and opposition. The blocking of roads, the arming of MQM militants who took up positions at strategic roadblocks, and the ignoring of the orders of the Sindh High Court were all carried out by the government”.

• Karachi was a main target of Al Qaida-linked militants after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US when Pakistan joined the US-led campaign against militancy, and foreigners were attacked in the city several times.
• One of Pakistan’s worst bomb attacks took place in Karachi in October 2007 during a welcome-home rally for self-exiled former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. About 140 people were killed. Bhutto was assassinated in Rawalpindi just over two months later.
• Karachi is targeted as it is a major transit point for military and other supplies to Afghanistan for the US and Nato-led anti-insurgency effort. Any trouble can directly affect those supplies.

Source

Date

Statement By

Statement

News Item

• At least 27 people were killed and over 100 others – including women and children – wounded in twin blasts that ripped through the provincial capital as the city marked Hazrat Imam Hussain’s (RA) chehlum on Friday.

• A bus filled with Shiite Muslims was attacked, then a second blast occurred at a hospital where victims of the first explosion were taken. Karachi, Pakistan: Twin bombings kill at least 22 in Pakistan Two bomb blasts targeting a bus filled with Shiite Muslims and later a hospital in Karachi on Friday killed at least 22 people in the latest outbreak of violence plaguing the troubled, nuclear-armed state.

Editorial

• The procession marks the end of the 40-day mourning period commemorating the martyrdom of Hazrat Imam Hussain in Karbala. The injured were taken to the Jinnah Hospital where less than two hours later there was another blast in its parking lot near the emergency ward, killing 13 more and injuring dozens others. The death toll has risen to 31 overnight. These ruthless terrorist acts cannot be condemned enough.

Maulana Hassan Zafar Naqvi, Shia Religious Scholar

•  I never believed on sectarian violence. There is no sectarianism in Pakistan. Many Sunni Muslims were died in the previous attack and today again some of my Sunni brethren were the victim of Jinnah Hospital blast.
• American presence in the area is facilitating violence and riots between Shia and Sunni sects. It is trying to create the situation which it has created in Iraq.

Ahmed Qureshi, Investigative Journalist

• For the first time since 2004 Jindullah targeted Pakistani territory.  We should condemn the killings of innocent people of Pakistan.
• There certain rogue elements in CIA and they are betraying Pakistan, and they have allowed India to establish their bases in Afghanistan.
• These are the biggest ever incidents of sectarian nature in Pakistan for lat five years. Interior ministry is on the record that they have captured people from Jindullah.
• Why our government is not taking action against Taliban. It is very sad that no action is taken after getting solid information.

Senator Mushahid Ullah, Leader PML-N

•  To control the Karachi situation, its main responsibility lies in the hands of those who control law enforcement agencies.
•  If Taliban are behind every terrorism then whether Taliban were behind the incident of May 12^th, 2007. If we blame Taliban for every blast and terrorism then we negate presence of RAW, MOSAAD and other enemy’s agencies that are operating in this region and have their interest here. Who are funding TTP and providing them weapons, these are the people who have created TTP.

• The pattern of such blast has been used in D.I Khan and now terrorists are using it in Karachi, Indian intelligence is very effectively importing this pattern into Pakistan. RAW’s network is already very strong in Karachi.

• We have been crying that Karachi is becoming victim of Talibanization. People have been making fun of our arguments.
• Our innocent people are killed but responsible people are constantly ignoring and neglecting their responsibility.

• Institutions are failed and Govt is unable to control situation. All parties should play their role to establish peace in Karachi.
• Security is not being provided to citizens but Govt is escaping from its responsibility.

•  An official of intelligence agencies told us that both of today’s blasts were carried by banned Jundullah group. Four members of this group were arrested in connection with Ashoora blast

• RAW, MOSSAD, CIA and Backwater are working in Pakistan to destabilize our country.
• Armed Americans have been captured in Lahore and Islamabad. Our bases are with Americans where we have no immigration staff; our people are not allowed to go there.

Source

Date

Statement By

Statement

News Item

• At least 21 people have been killed and 25 injured in fresh incidents of target killings in Karachi during the last 24 hours, a private TV channel reported on Wednesday.

Salis bin Perwaiz

• On Wednesday night, while he was on duty, armed men riding on motorcycle shot him and fled. The deceased was a supporter of the ANP. Rana Mohammed Younus, 60, was shot dead in Shah Latif police limits. Police sources said that, the deceased was an activist of the MQM and former councilor of the MQM in Quaidabad.

News Item

• Fourteen more people, including a policeman, were shot and killed in the city in fresh incidents of target killings on Thursday, bringing the death toll to 38 since Tuesday.

• ANP, MQM leaders and Army Chief should participate in the meeting in order to find permanent solution of Karachi’s violence.

News Item

• In the continuing wave of sectarian violence in the city, a Shia man was gunned down on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the police have failed to arrest the criminals involved in targeted killings.

• It seems more likely that these terrorist leaders have fled to the more populous parts of Pakistan (Punjab, Sind and major cities like Karachi). Pakistani officials do not like this outcome, but it appears to be what is happening. Local police in Punjab and Sind are dealing with it, after years of blaming terrorist violence on outsiders. It’s now obvious to all that Islamic groups have been operating in Punjab and Sind for quite some time, with little assistance from outsiders

Syed Arifain

• Once again target killing has started in Karachi. People are being killed on basis of sectarian differences.
• Religious extremism is spreading in Karachi once again.

• Police said they had arrested two Taliban militants on Friday who were planning terror attacks in Karachi. The two members of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were arrested during a police raid in Baldia area, senior police official Omar Shahid told AFP. “The police are interrogating the two men, Inamullah Mahsud, a resident of North Waziristan, and his local facilitator Sajjadullah Mahsud,” the official said.

Editorial

• With an overall increase in violence throughout the country, a general failure of law enforcement agencies and decline in economic and other opportunities, Lyari has seen a downward spiral. It is unfortunate that this locality was grossly neglected when development was at full swing in other zones of Karachi.

• “Karachi has been known in the past as a place where terrorists collaborated with criminals to raise funds for their own activities, however, terrorists are now zooming in on Lahore,” The Daily Times quoted sources, as saying. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is strengthening its position in Punjab continuously and has joined hands with local ‘jihadi’ groups, but strangely enough the provincial Government is living in denial, as it has opposed the idea of a Swat like military operation in the province.