27 die ahead of Pakistan rallies
Sunday, May 13, 2007
GUNBATTLES ahead of rival political rallies in Pakistan left 27 people dead and 90 injured yesterday in the worst violence since President Pervez Musharraf suspended the country's top judge two months ago.
Military ruler Musharraf ruled out declaring a state of emergency despite the bloodshed in the southern city of Karachi, state media reported, where ousted chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad was due to address supporters.
Black smoke billowed over the volatile commercial hub, witnesses said, as mobs armed with assault rifles and shotguns opened fire on a private television studio and torched four buses and dozens of other vehicles.
Key US ally Musharraf dismissed Chaudhry on March 9 over allegations that he abused his power, turning the judge into a symbol of defiance and unleashing the most serious crisis of the president's eight-year rule.
Opponents say army chief Musharraf acted unconstitutionally in a bid to neuter the judiciary and make it easier to be re-elected as president by the current parliament before his five-year term runs out in November.
"Twenty-seven people have died in the violence," Sindh provincial governor Ishratul Ibad told a private television station. "The situation is very bad."
New York-based Human Rights Watch said Musharraf's government and its allies had apparently "deliberately sought to foment violence in Karachi", adding that police stood by as "silent spectators".
Security officials said 15 of the victims, who include a policeman and a paramedic, died during clashes between opposition parties supporting the chief justice and pro-Musharraf activists in several parts of the city.
An AFP photographer at the scene of the biggest clash said workers from the pro-Musharraf Muttahida Qaumi Movement exchanged gunfire for an hour with activists from exiled former premier Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party.
Earlier, gunmen on motorbikes shot dead two activists from the party of former premier Nawaz Sharif as they put up posters welcoming Chaudhry. Separately, a member of an opposition Islamic party was fatally shot.
Private Aaj television, which has come under pressure from the government for its allegedly pro-chief justice stance, showed footage of gunmen firing at its office in Karachi and of its correspondents diving for cover.
Justice Chaudhry remained stranded at Karachi airport after flying in yesterday morning, because government supporters had used trucks with deflated tyres to shut down all main roads, including those leading to the airport. Governor Ibad said that Chaudhry's team of lawyers had now been ordered to leave Karachi and urged that he too should "consider the grim situation of the city and take a decision".
Paramilitary troops at the airport tried to force him into a helicopter and fly him to the Sindh province high court "but we did not let the security people take him forcibly", said Munir Malik, one of his lawyers.
Gunmen fired at Malik's house earlier in the week.
Meanwhile after two months of protests in support of the judge, Musharraf is finally set to make his own show of strength later in the day with a massive gathering in the capital, Islamabad. Officials said they expected up to 400,000 people to attend.
Musharraf was quoted as saying by the state-run APP that there was "absolutely no requirement and absolutely no environment" for declaring a state of emergency.AFP
Military ruler Musharraf ruled out declaring a state of emergency despite the bloodshed in the southern city of Karachi, state media reported, where ousted chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad was due to address supporters.
Black smoke billowed over the volatile commercial hub, witnesses said, as mobs armed with assault rifles and shotguns opened fire on a private television studio and torched four buses and dozens of other vehicles.
Key US ally Musharraf dismissed Chaudhry on March 9 over allegations that he abused his power, turning the judge into a symbol of defiance and unleashing the most serious crisis of the president's eight-year rule.
Opponents say army chief Musharraf acted unconstitutionally in a bid to neuter the judiciary and make it easier to be re-elected as president by the current parliament before his five-year term runs out in November.
"Twenty-seven people have died in the violence," Sindh provincial governor Ishratul Ibad told a private television station. "The situation is very bad."
New York-based Human Rights Watch said Musharraf's government and its allies had apparently "deliberately sought to foment violence in Karachi", adding that police stood by as "silent spectators".
Security officials said 15 of the victims, who include a policeman and a paramedic, died during clashes between opposition parties supporting the chief justice and pro-Musharraf activists in several parts of the city.
An AFP photographer at the scene of the biggest clash said workers from the pro-Musharraf Muttahida Qaumi Movement exchanged gunfire for an hour with activists from exiled former premier Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party.
Earlier, gunmen on motorbikes shot dead two activists from the party of former premier Nawaz Sharif as they put up posters welcoming Chaudhry. Separately, a member of an opposition Islamic party was fatally shot.
Private Aaj television, which has come under pressure from the government for its allegedly pro-chief justice stance, showed footage of gunmen firing at its office in Karachi and of its correspondents diving for cover.
Justice Chaudhry remained stranded at Karachi airport after flying in yesterday morning, because government supporters had used trucks with deflated tyres to shut down all main roads, including those leading to the airport. Governor Ibad said that Chaudhry's team of lawyers had now been ordered to leave Karachi and urged that he too should "consider the grim situation of the city and take a decision".
Paramilitary troops at the airport tried to force him into a helicopter and fly him to the Sindh province high court "but we did not let the security people take him forcibly", said Munir Malik, one of his lawyers.
Gunmen fired at Malik's house earlier in the week.
Meanwhile after two months of protests in support of the judge, Musharraf is finally set to make his own show of strength later in the day with a massive gathering in the capital, Islamabad. Officials said they expected up to 400,000 people to attend.
Musharraf was quoted as saying by the state-run APP that there was "absolutely no requirement and absolutely no environment" for declaring a state of emergency.AFP
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