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.