News
Monday, January 17, 2011
Partial curfew as five more killed in Karachi
* Government to deploy commandos with helicopters to conduct raids
* Pillion riding banned for seven days
* Interior minister says third force involved in target killings
Staff Report
KARACHI: Partial curfew has been imposed in some areas of Karachi while the Sindh government has decided to deploy commandos equipped with helicopters to conduct raids in troubled areas after some five people were killed in a fresh wave of political violence in the country’s financial hub on Sunday.
Neither political dialogue nor security agencies’ efforts have been able to check the growing menace of target killings in the southern port city, where the death toll in four consecutive days of violence has reached 29. The Sindh Home Department confirmed 23 killings.
“A semi-curfew will be imposed in some areas of Karachi,” Federal Interior Minister, Rehman Malik, told reporters after meeting top provincial officials in Karachi.
“We are not going to spare them (terrorists),” he said, claiming that a third force was involved in target killings. “Our coalition partners, including Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain, Awami National Party’s (ANP) Asfandyar Wali and PPP leaders, are deeply concerned and are in consensus to expose the elements hatching conspiracies against the government,” the minister added.
“It is responsibility of the federal and provincial governments to protect the people,” he said, justifying the decision to impose the partial curfew, without disclosing which areas would be affected.
Earlier, a high-level meeting, chaired by Malik along with Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah at his office, decided to increase deployment of police and rangers personnel in the city’s “sensitive and grey areas”.
During the meeting, it was revealed that some criminals, who came from abroad, were involved in target killings and some of their accomplices were still hiding in the city.
In this respect, the meeting decided to enhance security at the Karachi airport to monitor suspects and criminals coming from other countries. As per sources, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has been assigned this job.
It was also decided that raids against those using snatched cellphones would be started, as the criminals mostly used such phones during their activities.
According to reports, five people, including two MQM workers, were gunned down on Sunday while an ANP activist, who sustained bullet wounds in Al-Falah area on Saturday, also succumbed to his injuries.
The MQM workers, Kashif and Jaffer, were shot by unidentified armed men, riding on a motorbike, in Chona Bhatti area in the limits of Risala Police Station. They both received multiple bullets and were taken to the Civil Hospital, where doctors pronounced them dead. Tension gripped the area following their murder, sources say.
Meanwhile, Sindh Chief Minister’s Press Secretary, Allah Bachayo Memon, told Daily Times that the Sindh government was not imposing any partial curfew in the city.
He was quoted Rehman Malik as saying “that no curfew will be imposed in the city”.
The Sindh Home Department has imposed a ban on pillion riding in the city for seven days, he added.
Moreover, a Sindh Home Department official said that some areas would be cordoned of for a specific duration for door-to-door search.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk