Karachi unrest: 11 killed in wave of sectarian violence
Tension gripped the Gulberg and North Karachi neighbourhoods after 11 people were killed in sectarian attacks in the early hours of Saturday.
Police suspect the wave of violence was in retaliation for attacks on the Shia community, in particular Friday’s attack on a bus of the Imamia Students Organisation (ISO) in Karachi.
All of the killings occurred in District Central, where 10 people lost their lives in overnight killings that took place in a span of two hours, while another man was killed at noon.
The first attack occurred in Gulberg locality, where motorcyclists fired on Qari Asif and Qari Shakirullah while they were sitting in their office. Both held posts in the Taqwatul Eman Masjid-o-Madrassa.
At around 1:20am, the second target were three friends: Maulana Muhammad Yahya, 32, Faizan Ilyas, 27 and Mujahid Aleem, 26. They were sitting together when unidentified culprits gunned them down near Masjid-o-Madrassa Yasinul Quran. Yahya was a teacher at Yasinul Quran seminary while Faizan was a Masjid committee member.
Twenty minutes later, a similar incident occurred near Masjid-o-Madrassa Quba, just two kilometres from Masjid-o-Madrassa Yasinul Quran. Assailants sprayed people sitting at Café Green with bullets, killing five people and injuring another. One of the men killed, Hafiz Sharjeel Ali, was associated with the Tableeghi Jamaat. All five killed were friends who lived in the same area.
Witnesses and acquaintances claimed the five men were targeted because they were Deobandi, as they often used to visit Masjid-o-Madrassa Quba. They added that the culprits were travelling on at least two motorcycles and had a car as a backup. A shopkeeper who witnessed the incident said that the Rangers headquarters were across the road and that if action had been taken immediately, the culprits could have been arrested.
The fourth such incident occurred at a two-kilometre distance from where the funeral prayers for the Gulberg victims were being offered – another Deobandi, Qari Ahsan, 30, was gunned down when he was returning home from Friday prayers.
As a result of the killings, commercial activities came to a halt in the area and all markets were closed. Tensions escalated during the various funeral prayers taking place in the area, with attendees staging a protest, blocking roads and chanting slogans against a rival sectarian group and the government.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 19th, 2012.
COMMENTS (23)
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We condemn the killings of Tableegi jamaat people. They are innocent
All shias are not angles, they always retaliate whenever such incidents occur irrespective of who is doing. The only solution is our agencies should work out to find the exact culprits, and present them infront of public in an unbiased way. Respective sects should approach to their organizations and tell them to stop otherwise in retaliation more important lives may be lost. The terrorist are not Deobandy, Shia , Sunni , They do what their Master Mind says, over all to ignite sectarian voilence like Iraq, Syria, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Thanks to Zia ul Haq he started first journey in 1988 to ignite such incidents.
@Aahjiz BayNawa: Correction: Without a Syria type struggle majority RULE cannot be achieved in Pakistan.
@Eye:
What nonsense! Looks like a propaganda combined with extreme hatred towards a majority sect of Pakistan and a severe case of ignorance. Who'll believe you when you say that the killings of Sunnis is a recent phenomenon? The entire decade of 1990s was full of shias attacking mosques and killing thousands of people in Punjab and Karachi. Yes, there were counter-attacks too but it was a war in which both parties were equally involved.
Your assertion that all Deobandis are terrorists can backfire because the same statement can be used to describe your community, given the gory history of attacks on mosques and killings of prominent ulemas.
Actually as for as these type of killings are concerned , our ulema are responsible for these ignitions. They should study the Shia Islam clearly and propagate the real picture of the Fundamental rules not the Individual and superficial actions. In the very simple is that Most of the Believes are common like ALLAH RASOOL KITAB QABA HAJJ only the difference may be the IMMAAT and KHILAFAT, So these difference are only 5% and the Common believes are 90% ,and our Ulema and Shia Ulema focus the 5% and dig into it. We should propagate the Common Believes rather than differences.
@omer: Without a Syria type struggle majority ruled cannot be achieved in Pakistan.
@ eye retaliated now only? I would advise that you get your facts right. I believe that certain elements in both sides are to blame equally. however I find it amusing for you to laud yourself when your actions in shia dominated countries seem to be on the contrary. please stop playing naive.
please also elaborate which sect is supporting the mass murder in Syria? i guess that makes you a sympathizer of an even bigger mass murderer.
as for the truth, god knows best.:)
@al Its a sad fact that that sect you talk about with the millions of adherents is the one that spawns all the terrorists, suicide bombers and mass murderers and everyone knows it. If you belong to that sect you should try and reach out to your bigoted peers and teach them that they should first think about becoming good humans and them worry about being good Muslims. You may not all be terrorists but you all certainly seem to be terrorist sympathizers those who aren't members of your relatively recent sect.
And anyone seeing this game play out with unbiased eyes knows which side is responsible the vast majority of the sectarian murders and which side has only recently begun retaliating in earnest after suffering quietly for years. Its sad but it was inevitable. What did you expect? That the people who have been killed in droves for years for their refusal to deny the bitter truths of muslim history would go quietly to their death as a whole? If you believe that the violence has not been one sided but only have this incident in Karachi to back up you claim it just means that you have been sleeping in blissful ignorance for years and have only now woken up when people finally had enough and pinched you
Shia dominance of the Pakistan state is causing a violent reaction, which in turn is causing the Shias to retaliate. So the cycle goes on. The ethos of the majority is denied due representation in the affairs of the country.
What do you expect when the gov. Isn't stoping the speeches calling for Shia killings or arresting the criminals. How long do you expect the Shias watch their children die and receive mutilated bombed bodies?
It's expected that they will take things into their own hands. These killings were targeting known trouble makers. Thats why media is silent.
@Kanwal
Where are the facts? Sorry but your comment is nothing but an extensive hate mongering against a sect that has hundreds of millions of adherents. They all are terrorists? Maybe in your eyes but many see the sectarian violence with unbiased eyes and they know that there is no one 'infallible' in this game.
@tariq Siddiqui and Ibrahim Hashmi Yes the twitter is silent because the silent peaceful majority of Pakistan, which by the way is sunni, very clearly know that the deobandis and wahabis are the ones behind this terror campaign through this once peaceful country. And its not a coincident that you find almost all the bomb blasts, attacks on civilians (including women and children) and fighting with army is waged by criminals who are found to belong to this sect. It is also certainly not new information for this silent majority that this madrassas and seminaries of this sect have extensive foreign backing. You will find it almost impossible to come up with a single bomb blast done by a barelvi, shia, hindu, ahmadi or christian in pakistan. under no circumstances any human being will not deplore the killing of people who were not proven criminals and given death sentence in a court of law. But for once, pls realise why people do not want to sympathise with just one sect in this country while they bombard the social media when some others are hurt.
Shias have never retaliated as hundreds of there men are targeted. A 3rd hand might have carried out such act to incite a sectarian violence..
@ al. wow you happen to know a lot. you are in CID or something. the killings of shia & sunni would only weaken us more as muslims. what are we coming to. we have let this happen to ourselves. we all are to blame.
@Mohammad
What crap'! The recent killings are done by shias and even a fool knows that.
well , its not the retaliation . in shia islam it is " strongly forbidden " to kill a sunni muslim just because he is a sunni. otherwise in the reply to the mass killing of the shias, hundreds of WAHABIES would have been killed too. thanks to our ulema who always say , shia and sunnis are brothers.
Sectarian war perhaps started now. One group then second group. It will subside after natural and ultimate goal achievement.
@Zafar: yes,but the target killings of Sunnis don't get as much media attention.Twitter is silent over the murders of these 10 men.
So,the sectarian war continues,now Sunnis are the target.There is a narrative being propagated through social media that it's only one sect's members that are being killed,various trends and hashtags are used to hammer home this point that it's a one sided affair,these brutal murders of 10 men in Karachi have exposed the bitter truth that it's a sectarian war in which both sects are losing lives.