Rising Violence in Karachi Kills 16 in Two Days
At least 16 people, including a police officer and a coast guard officer, were killed in what police called terrorist attacks Friday and early Saturday morning in the violence-hit Pakistani port city of Karachi.
The killings raised Karachi’s June death toll from ethnic and political unrest to 138, which includes 24 police officers and three Pakistan navy personnel.
Friday evening, a coast guard officer was shot dead and two people were wounded when gunmen opened fire from a car, police said. In a similar hit-and-run operation, gunmen killed a police motorcyclist, they said.
An activist of the ethnic Haqiqi, a dissident faction of the mainstream Mohajir National Movement, or MQM, was killed when armed men attacked the residence of its vice chairman, Badar Iqbal, in District Central.
The Haqiqi blamed its rival MQM for the attack. But an MQM spokesman denied his party’s involvement.
Mohajirs are Muslims and their descendants who came from India after the partition of British India in 1947.
Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has blamed the MQM for instigating armed attacks on security forces and government buildings.
The opposition group accuses Bhutto’s government of discrimination in education and jobs. The government has offered to open negotiations if the group agrees to disarm.
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