Bomb explosion rocks Karachi amid strike

Bomb explosion rocks Karachi amid strike

KARACHI (AP): A bomb explosion wracked the restive port city of Karachi on Wednesday as a strike by two ethnic groups paralyzed most parts of southern Sindh province.

The bomb exploded in Kharadar, a congested southern neighborhood, wounding two people and destroying several vehicles, police said.

The army was called in to quell violence in Karachi, where late on Tuesday unidentified gunmen began firing on passenger buses and killed two people.

Rioters, chanting anti-government slogans, also set ablaze at least 24 vehicles early on Wednesday and overnight as gunmen warned people to keep their businesses shut to make the strike a success.

The ethnic Muttahida Qami Movement and Sindhi nationalist Jeay Sindh called the strike to protest a severe water shortage in Sindh province, where Karachi is the capital.

In recent months, there have been several protests and strikes in Karachi - Pakistan's major port city and main commercial center - posing a serious challenge to the military-led government, which wants to revive the country's ailing economy.

The government, which banned protests and rallies soon after it seized power in a bloodless coup in October 1999, has been trying to stem the violence, saying Pakistan cannot afford it.

But militant ethnic and religious groups, including the MQM and the Jeay Sindh, have ignored the government's pleas and defied the ban.

The MQM represents Urdu-speaking people who migrated from India when the subcontinent was partitioned in 1947. Jeay Sindh represents indigenous Sindhis.

Traditional rivals, the two groups have set aside their differences and accused the government of not giving Sindh its due share of water.

On Wednesday, army and paramilitary troops patrolled the deserted streets of Karachi in vehicles mounted with machine guns.

Most business, markets, offices and educational institutions were shuttered as small groups of youngsters burned tires and threw stones to block roads. Police arrested at least 30 protesters.

"The government will not tolerate any disturbance in law and order," Mukhtar Ahmed, home secretary of Sindh told The Associated Press. "The army has been called out to protect the life and property of the people."

Meanwhile, a media rights group on Wednesday denounced the recent closure of a newspaper in northwest Pakistan and the arrests of three of its journalists on blasphemy charges.

Police closed down the regional daily Mohasib on June 5 after it published an article entitled The Beard and Islam in which a well-known poet criticized a fundamentalist claim that good Muslims must wear beards.

The Paris-based media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders said on Wednesday that it sent a letter to the governor of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province criticizing the newspaper's closure and the arrests as violations of press freedom.

The article's publication led to a demonstration by Muslim fundamentalists on June 8 in North West Frontier Province, which borders Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. During the demonstration, clerics called for the death penalty against the article's publishers.

That same day, police arrested managing editor Shahid Chaudry, news editor Shakil Tahirkheli and sub-editor Raja Muhammad Haroon, on blasphemy charges. Police confirmed on Wednesday that the men were still in custody.

It was the second time this year a newspaper had been shut down on the basis of Pakistan's controversial blasphemy law, which remains on the books despite opposition from human rights groups and religious minorities.

Under the law, those convicted of taking the Muslim prophet Mohammed's name in vain or other religious offenses must be put to death. Many have been imprisoned or killed by zealots after they were accused of blasphemy, but so far no one has been executed.

"We are now in a situation of what we call the Talibanization of this province," said Vincent Brossel, an official at Reporters Without Borders.