Eighteen people were killed in Karachi on Saturday in clashes between pro-government and opposition activists over the arrival of the country’s suspended top judge to rally support for his cause.
The suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry on March 9 has outraged the judiciary and the opposition and has blown up into the most serious challenge to President Pervez Musharraf’s authority since he seized power in 1999.
Opposition leaders said Karachi was under siege by supporters of the pro-government Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which runs Pakistan’s biggest city.
Saturday was declared a public holiday in Karachi and normal traffic was largely absent from the streets, where thousands of paramilitary troops and police were on patrol.
Heavy gunfire erupted outside the airport and elsewhere as gunmen clashed and smoke billowed from more than 100 burning vehicles.
Many roads including the one from the airport were blocked by trucks, buses and containers overnight in an apparent bid to disrupt Chaudhry’s visit to the capital of Sindh province.
”It is state-sponsored terrorism. The Sindh government is responsible but we are not going to back off,” said Sherry Rehman, a spokesperson for the opposition Pakistani People’s Party (PPP) of former premier Benazir Bhutto.
Provincial government officials had warned of violence in the volatile city and appealed to Chaudhry to postpone his trip.
But he went ahead and arrived on a flight from Islamabad at noon (7am GMT). Hours later, he was still in the airport VIP lounge, still hoping to meet his supporters, one of his lawyers said, though authorities had urged him to leave.
”The chief justice should think about his decision and go back to Islamabad,” said top provincial Interior Ministry official Waseem Akhtar.
Chaudhry denies wrongdoing and has refused to resign in the face of charges of misconduct. His visit to Karachi was meant to be the latest in a series of protests by the opposition and lawyers to press for his reinstatement.
Activists clash
MQM activists clashed with members of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, an opposition alliance of religious parties, and the PPP in several parts of Karachi, which has for years been riven by bloody political feuding.
Television showed pictures of men with AK-47 assault rifles firing from behind cars. A man with a neck wound was shown crying in a bus and another wounded man lay gasping in a pool of his own blood.
Private Aaj Television said its office had come under fire.
Several thousand MQM activists surrounded the High Court where Chaudhry had planned to meet Karachi lawyers. They chanted slogans and beat several lawyers trying to get in.
Provincial government spokesperson Salahuddin Haider said 18 people had been killed in the violence. City hospitals said scores were wounded.
The government has said it could declare an emergency if the situation warranted it but Musharraf, who was due to hold a rally in Islamabad later on Saturday, said it was not needed.
”There is absolutely no requirement and absolutely no environment for taking such drastic measures,” Musharraf was quoted as saying by the state-run APP news agency shortly before the Karachi violence erupted.
He repeated a call for Chaudhry’s case to be settled by the Supreme Court: ”We must stop taking this issue onto the street and making it into a political issue.”
The crisis coincides with the run-up to a general election and an anticipated attempt by Musharraf, an important US ally, to secure another term.
Musharraf, who is also army chief, wants to be re-elected by the national and provincial assemblies before they are dissolved for a general election around the end of the year.
Analysts say his main motive in seeking the removal of the independent-minded Chaudhry is to have a more pliable man in place in case of a constitutional challenge to his plans. – Reuters