Karachi violence: Malik claims to have stopped target killings

One MQM, two ANP workers among six dead in Sindh metropolis.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik has denied that there have been any target killings in Karachi since Thursday, even as reports surfaced that six people, including three political party workers, were gunned down in separate acts of violence in the city on Friday.

Speaking to reporters outside Parliament, the interior minister claimed that the government’s measures against target killing were paying off. Referring to the reports of violence from Karachi, Malik said that “it is unfair to call all [violent] incidents target killings.”

The minister said some people were killed due to personal rivalries in Karachi, citing the example of two brothers who were recently killed by their enemies.

Malik said that the government was taking strict action against the target killing problem, adding that some of the people involved were taking refuge by affiliating themselves with political parties. He then appeared to contradict himself by denying that any political party workers were involved in target killings.

“Many suspects involved in target killings were arrested and action was under way against many others,” he added.

Malik’s claims come in the wake of an extended crime wave in Karachi that left six people dead on Friday, including two the Awami National Party claims were its members, and one MQM activist.

A bus was also set ablaze late night. Police officials, however, deny that the two men belonged to any political party and claimed that ethnic conflict in the city was deliberately being stirred up, though they did not specify who they suspected of being responsible.

“They had no links with the ANP,” said Shabbir Haider, a police officer. “But since they were Pakhtun and were from Quetta, the ANP claimed that they were their workers.”

ANP spokesman, Qadir Khan, asked all Pakhtuns to join the protests and voice their condemnation of the incident. “We appeal to all Pakhtuns to shut their hotels, shops and pushcarts,” said Khan.

The violence in Karachi has frequently brought the country’s largest city and largest port to a standstill as rival political parties blame each other for killing their workers while each claiming to have no target killers within its own ranks.

The federal government has been faced with a dilemma in dealing with the situation since the two political parties that most often blame each other, the ANP and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), are both coalition partners of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

In recent weeks, President Asif Ali Zardari and the federal interior minister have tried to calm the political waters over the target killing issue by promising federal assistance to local law enforcement.

WITH ADDITION REPORTING FROM APP

Published in The Express Tribune, April 16^th,  2011.