Bomb blasts rock Karachi as strike grips the province
Bomb blasts rock Karachi as strike grips the province
KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters): A night of violence in the Pakistani city of Karachi was followed by two bomb blasts on Wednesday that killed one person and wounded two, police and witnesses said.
The blasts, in the upmarket Clifton and Defense areas, came amid tight security as a one-day strike gripped Karachi and major towns and cities throughout the southern province of Sindh, forcing an almost complete shutdown.
"We have confirmed reports there is a bomb blast in which a person died," a police official said of the first explosion.
Karachi bomb squad chief Moin-uddin told Reuters a second "low-intensity device" exploded near a fast-food shop, wounding one person and smashing windows.
Police said the dead person, originally thought to be a bomber, was a drug addict who had an explosive device placed in his bag while he slept. Doctors said one of the wounded was in stable condition and the other suffered superficial injuries.
It was unclear whether the blasts were related to the strike.
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the biggest political party in Karachi, and the Jiye Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) issued the strike call to protest against government clampdowns on political activities and a failure to solve a chronic water shortage.
The stoppage follows a night of violence in which 238 people were arrested and dozens of vehicles torched.
MQM officials said the strike was successful and blamed the violence on state agencies out to discredit strike supporters.
"We have called a peaceful strike and all business groups in the city have supported us. We have a mass support...so violence by our party is out of question," senior MQM leader Nasreen Jalil, a senator in the upper house suspended following Pakistan's 1999 military coup, told Reuters.
"Intelligence agencies and the establishment always play a dirty role in Pakistani politics and they are again doing that to malign the MQM," she said.
Police told Reuters the overnight violence had helped force people to observe the shutdown.
"We have arrested 238 people in different parts of the city on public order offenses," said a senior police official, adding seven had been caught trying to burn public vehicles.
He said security forces had raided houses belonging to known MQM and JSQM activists, and there had been shooting into the air to scare people.
On Wednesday, groups of armed paramilitary personnel patrolled Karachi streets and most shops, schools and businesses remained shuttered and few buses were running.
Aside from the blasts the situation in the city remained mostly calm through Wednesday, although officials said a few more vehicles, including two ambulances, had been torched in the morning.
"Since the early morning violence we have not received any more reports of trouble," said a fire brigade official.
Other cities and towns throughout Sindh reported an almost complete shutdown.
"It is in a real sense a (total strike) as neither shops were opened nor vehicular traffic was on the roads in the interior of Sindh," said one resident in the city of Nawabshah, 320 km (200 miles) northeast of Karachi.
Other reports said protesters had blocked sections of the national highway running between Karachi and the northwestern city of Peshawar.
Railway officials in Hyderabad said the trains were running normally.
A senior Karachi city official said extremists wanted to create havoc.
"The terrorists want to create havoc and if one compares with what happened yesterday evening the blasts were less damaging, we are trying to further tighten security," he said.
Most banks and government offices were open, while traders on the Karachi stock exchange said business had continued although attendance was low. Work at Karachi's Port Qasim was hit with 70 percent of dock laborers staying at home, officials said.
The strike call came after police used teargas and batons to crush a series of protests against the water crisis, the latest being in Karachi on Monday.
The military government has banned all public rallies and demonstrations and security forces have arrested thousands of political workers over the past month.
Political and religious parties in Sindh have staged a series of demonstrations against the water crisis, accusing the military government of withholding irrigation supplies in some areas of the province in favor of the populous central province of Punjab.
The government denies the charge, saying it is doing everything it can to solve the problem which has badly hit crops and livelihoods.
Pakistan has suffered an acute rain shortage -- especially in the key agricultural province of Sindh -- for the last four years.