Two dozen dead in Bhutto protests
Fri Dec 28, 2007 9:07am EST
By Imtiaz Shah
KARACHI (Reuters) - Protests erupted in Pakistan for a
second day on Friday after the assassination of
opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and the violence was
worst in her home province in the south.
Officials said 24 people, including four policemen,
had died since former prime minister Bhutto was
murdered on Thursday in a gun and bomb attack after an
election rally in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad.
The violence intensified on Friday into some of the
worst political disturbances in years in nuclear-armed
Pakistan.
All but one of the dead were killed in Sindh province
in the south, Bhutto's home province and her main base
of support.
Particularly hard hit was Hyderabad city where troops
were called out to restore calm after an order to
police to shoot violent protesters on sight failed to
quell the trouble.
"The army is being moved into the city but there's no
decision on imposing a curfew," said provincial
interior ministry secretary Ghulam Mohtaram.
Officials had said they feared the disturbances would
intensify after Bhutto's funeral at her family's
ancestral home in the province on Friday afternoon.
Meanwhile, in an apparent militant attack, a bomb at
an election meeting in the country's troubled
northwest killed six people including a candidate in
January polls for the party that supports President
Pervez Musharraf, police said.
Islamist militants, probably linked to al Qaeda, top
the list of suspects for Bhutto's murder.
In Hyderabad, police and witnesses said protesters had
set fire to about 25 banks, 100 vehicles and foreign
fast-food outlets. Several train coaches were also
torched.
"A LOT OF DAMAGE"
The streets of Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city and
its commercial capital, were largely deserted with
shops shuttered and paramilitary troops and police
patrolling.
In the east of the city, more than 2,000 people
attacked a police station and set it on fire. They
stole some weapons and torched cars outside, police
said.
"Since last night a lot of damage has been caused.
Shops, cars and government buildings are being burnt,"
said senior Karachi police official Azhar Ali Farooqi.
Fires also blazed across the interior of Sindh.
A Reuters reporter traveling from Karachi to the
Bhuttos' home district of Larkana, where Bhutto was
buried, said he saw hundreds of smoldering vehicles
and many shops on fire.
Protesters shouted slogans against Musharraf, Bhutto's
old rival.
Musharraf condemned Bhutto's killing, appealed for
calm and declared three days of mourning. Banks and
schools were closed across the country.
Nawaz Sharif, another opposition leader and former
prime minister, had called for a nationwide strike on
Friday.
Violence broke out in Pakistan's other provinces and
one person was killed in the eastern city of Lahore,
police said.
In the northwestern city of Peshawar two offices of
pro-Musharraf political parties were torched, a
witness said.
Protesters in the southwestern province of Baluchistan
set fire to a railway station, several banks,
government vehicles and offices of a pro-Musharraf
party, police said.
In the city of Multan in Punjab province, a crowd
damaged seven banks and torched eight petrol stations.
Protesters took to the streets of Muzaffarabad in
Pakistani Kashmir.
In the Swat valley, where the army has been fighting
pro-Taliban militants, a blast at an election meeting
of the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League (Q) party
killed six people including a party candidate in the
polls, police said.
(Additional reporting by Asim Tanveer; writing by
Robert Birsel; editing by Roger Crabb)
© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.
---------------
Jusfiq Hadjar gelar Sutan Maradjo Lelo
Allah yang disembah orang Islam tipikal dan yang digambarkan oleh al-Mushaf itu
dungu, buas, kejam, keji, ganas, zalim lagi biadab hanyalah Allah fiktif.
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