KARACHI: A mini bus full of passengers was set ablaze near Tower in which one person was burnt alive while up to five others suffered burns injuries as miscreants went on a seeming rampage in the city which saw six other vehicles torched.
According to details, a bus route of W-11 was set ablaze within Jackson police station remits. The bus had passengers on board and the fire killed one of them. Five other also suffered burns injuries. They were rushed to the burns ward at Civil Hospital.
This was not the only incident of vehicles being torched in the city with buses being torched at NIPA, in Korangi, Orangi, North Nazimabad, and Mai Kolachi.
A Suzuki pick up was also reportedly torched at Gaggar Phatak, while a dumper truck was burnt on Super Highway.
Reports of firing from various areas was also received where tensions ran high in Shah Faisal, Gulistan-e- Johar, Gulshan, Gulshan-e-Hadeed, Bin Qasim, Steel Town, Gaggar Phatak, Pipri, Ittehad Town, Baldia Town, Malir, Safoora, Sachal, Pehelwan goth, Orangi Town and Sohrab Goth. Over half a dozen people were also reportedly injured in firing incidents across the city.
Two SHOs of Aziz Bhatti and Steel Town police station were suspended. However, police had also managed to detain over a dozen miscreants.
updated from print edition below.
No transport today: Firing erupts as parties prepare to strike
Sindhi nationalist and religious parties are set to orchestrate a province-wide shutterdown and wheel-jam strike Saturday (today) against the government’s decision to restore the Local Government Ordinance (SLGO) 2001.
The provincial government’s coalition partners, the Awami National Party (ANP) and National Peoples Party (NPP), are backing it as they argue that the decision to bring back the SLGO was an anti-Sindh move. The Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Sunni Tehreek and Balochistan National Party (Awami) are also taking part. The Karachi Transport Ittehad (KTI) has advised its members to stay off the roads as they do not want to be subjected to violence.
“Some men set five buses on fire near Safoora Chowrangi and the government has failed to protect us,” said KTI president Irshad Bukhari.
The nationalist parties, including the Sindh United Party (SUP), Jeay Sindh Qaumi Movement, Sindh National Front, Sindh National Party, Sindh Tarraqi Passand Party, Awami Tehreek and Jeay Sindh Tehreek have decided to launch a ‘Save Sindh Committee’ against what they say is the administrative division of the province.
“We want a peaceful strike but the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leaders are trying to disrupt the law and order situation by creating a civil war in Sindh,” said SUP’s Jalal Mehmood Shah. “The PPP leaders have asked their party workers to ensure that our strike fails but they have no idea about how the people of Sindh have rejected them.” He added that people who blamed the nationalists for their loss in the union council elections would learn how the people of the province could stand and react against them. Already by Friday night, firing was reported in Karachi’s Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Gulstan-e-Jauhar, Sachal Goth, Malir, Qauidabad, Gadap Town and Bin Qasim Town.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 13th, 2011.
COMMENTS (17)
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Its all summing to the desired point and we know who are the project managers. May Allah have mercy on us and mercy on our Pakistan.
@Mehran. All urdu speaking population living in Sindh (except Karachi) speaks fluent Sindhi as you can speak. In Karachi also Sindhi language is compulsory till high school and everyone has to pass it well to maintain his or her merit position. So this argument is baseless now that they should speak Sindhi to have peace. For the last 64 years Sindh Govt has been headed by our Sindhi brothers and they are also headed the Federal Govt many times since 1971 (like these days). Can you please name a single project that has been initiated in Sindh for their own people?? Please enlighten us if any work has been done for roti kapra aur makan as this has being promised to them for taking votes on Sindh card?? Do they have drinkable water? Do they have healthcare facilities? Do they have schools for education? Who is drawing salaries and other expenses for 8,000 ghost schools in the Province? Who is stopping you take care of your own brothers and sisters? WHO?? You have all the powers and resources to do this. So please dont spread hatred and look inside of yourself. There are good and bad in every one so pls dont blame the whole community in the name of your own rights. Dont you understand this nazim system is better because you can elect your own leader through votes? Why you want a DC should govern you? Only because your opponents are saying a right thing?
Please be sensible and try to live as brothers. 20 million urdu speaking are not going anywhere. Rest assured. We are also Sindhi and we dont need any certificate from you or anyone else. Please spread love and not hate. If you are not paid by those forces who want to break Pakistan then you will understand this. Allah hum sab kmo aqal dey.
People of Karachi, stop supporting those who need your blood to win elections only.
Qaum Parast’s have set a very bad example by agitating on the eve of Independence Day.
Agitation is part and parcel of democracy but when it is a day before the Independence Day, I have never seen or heard in my life that any political or religious party has demonstrated in such a way particularly on the eve of Independence Day.
I doubt very much that Qaum Parast’s are patriotic Pakistanis.
May Al-Mighty Allah give wisdom to Qaum Parast’s to understand that there is nothing bigger than the sovereignty of Pakistan.
High brains has failed to search its crucial treatment of this disease. God bless Pakistan and its people,who secured this country on the name of Islam.
@Nawaz Shareef Gonglu: This is an absurd statement of yours. You implied. When a crime is committed is evident as daylight, you say the criminals were just doing their job. And the judges who punished the criminals should not have sentenced them. It is quite obvious that a sense of "balance" and "equity" has not found a place in your personal orbit of thinking. My brother, please think of Pakistan and not parochially, Salams.
O GOD save our country and karachi.What the HELL these PAKISTANI doing with their brothers BURNT alive its look like HINDU MUSLIM riots going on in our city and we are living in 1947 era.Please love PAKISTAN.
See how stupid these people are, when the Local Government system was promulgated since 2001 they remained silent, but when the government restored the Commissioner System and then got its decision back, then they are activated, it means they are only being controlled by the Mafia behind, otherwise the Nazim system worked so well in Karachi.
@abdussamad: Schadenfreude has a way of homing back to its originator. Please desist from it. People are people. In West and East. As, Mr. Tariq Jahan of Birmingham said, "If you believe in a grey-bearded man, for whom you perhaps, have no respect ... when you are my age, you will look back and regret of the wrongful actions of today." Truer words, were rarely spoken. Now, there is a British / Pakistani / Muslim / South Asian / Family Man, for you. That is the example we should all live up to. If a Pakistani can be that abroad. He can be the same at home.
Karachi is like London now! Oh wait. I think I got that backwards
There seems to be a double standard here. When MQM gets angry and there is violence, there is massive backlash, but when ANP and Sindhi parties decide that they will do the same, the critics are strangely silent. I'm not a supporter of any party, if I had a magic wand, I'd erase them, make Quaid live 40 years more so that he could set up a political system that would really work. I wish Fatima had married so that maybe her kids could have been wise enough to lead the country (though, I'd rather that we didn't have dynastic politics). I wish our president didn't need to be a Muslim, I'd make Cowasjee the main guy. Kayani, you need to wake up, bro.
Im truly embarrased to be a pakistani. I rhink Mr Zardari is from another planet. How can he tolerate all this???? Please will someone answer this? I know my comments will not be published,
Simple questions o Pakistanis: Why are Pakistanis doing this to each other? Why are Muslims doing this to each other? Why are humans doing this to each other? If anyone, is convinced that there is a valid reason, please do post it at the very earliest. So that we can make some sense of it.
Allah Bless Pakistan!!
Say thanks to Iftikhar Ch and the judge who convicted the Rangers who acted in the line of duty......."Innocent" kids just like Sarfraz Shah set ablaze the vehicles!!!