Big Drug Dealers Escaped Pakistani Raid, Afghans Driven From Homes Say

Afghan refugees who were driven from their homes in a massive heroin raid that touched off bloody communal rioting said Wednesday that most of the big drug dealers managed to escape.

“The biggest drug dealers all fled,” said Baz Mohammed, 40, an Afghan truck driver who was uprooted with his wife and nine children and was moved, along with several thousand other Afghan refugees, to a tent village in the desert 10 miles north of Karachi.

Kajeer Khan, 42, another Afghan truck driver, said: “There were some people involved with heroin. We are glad that curse is ended. But why are the rest of us being punished?”

The Afghans, among the 3 million refugees who have fled to Pakistan since the Soviet Union sent troops into Afghanistan seven years ago, were residents of Sohrab Goth, a suburban settlement where heroin was traded openly until it was leveled by bulldozers in a surprise raid by troops and policemen last Friday.

Curfew Is Eased

Meanwhile, curfew restrictions were eased in Karachi, the scene of three days of fighting between Pushtun tribesmen, also called Pathans, and Karachi’s large Mohajir community. At least three more people were killed Wednesday morning during a two-hour curfew break, bringing the toll since Sunday to at least 155.

The Urdu-speaking Mohajirs--3 million Muslims who have come to Karachi from India and Bangladesh since 1947--had urged the government to act against the heroin trade here, which is run mostly by Pushtuns and is among the world’s busiest.

The Pushtuns, including as many as 200,000 refugees from Afghanistan, blamed the Mohajirs for the government raid, which razed a Pathan community of more than 10,000 people.

Although the raid was concentrated on the Sohrab Goth market area, which is largely inhabited by Afghan members of the Pushtun community, the much more numerous Pakistani Pushtuns viewed it as an assault on them.

Attacked by Gangs

Pushtun gangs, armed with weapons of the type used by Afghan rebels against Soviet troops and Soviet-backed Afghan forces, attacked the Mohajirs, most of whom were unarmed. They set fire to hundreds of residences and business places and forced the Pakistani army to restore order.

Even though the raid came as a surprise, the government managed to seize only a relatively small amount of heroin, reportedly less than 500 pounds. Few known drug dealers were arrested, and this led opposition leaders to condemn the raid and blame the government for the resulting violence.

One opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto, chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party, said in a statement, “As is typical with the regime, drug raids were made in Sohrab Goth, and no big drug dealers were caught.”

She said “Karachi is bleeding” as a result of the raid and the ensuing violence.

Given the extent of the heroin traffic here--Pakistan is believed to account for more than half of the heroin consumed in the United States--the amount seized was considered disappointing. Nonetheless, Western diplomats who have been pressing the Pakistani government to crack down praised the action.

“Pakistan society appears to be more ready to do something about drugs than ever before,” one Western diplomat said.

Earlier, the sincerity of Pakistan’s anti-drug effort had been seriously questioned, particularly after the son of a provincial governor was caught in New York last year with a large quantity of heroin.