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.