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On Thursday morning. Some unidentified gunmen sprayed bullets on the convoy carrying local army commander Lieutenant General Ahsan Saleem Hayat in the busy Clifton area of Karachi. The commander escaped unhurt, but seven soldiers, two policemen and one passerby were killed.
Karachi, a metropolis with a population of 14 million and a world famous port city on the Arabian Sea, has been bleeding with terror in the past month.
The crowded and biggest city in Pakistan has experienced too much violence and death, with one explosion after another and a series of mass killings. Ordinary Muslims, police and even the military have been the targets.
"A long, hot May in Karachi," a title of an article published in a local newspaper, started on May 7 when a suicide attack on Hyderi Mosque situated in the historic Sindh Madrassatul Islam, claimed 24 lives and wounded over 100 people.
A bomb blast at the Karachi Port Trust and two car bomb explosions outside the Pak-American Culture Center, a private English-language school, occurred within a short span of just 20 hours on May 25 and 26.
The bomb blast killed three drivers and workers while the car bomb explosions killed one policeman and injured 29 others including many policemen and journalists. This, of course, is not the first attack in Karachi in which police were hit. On April 4, terrorists raided a police station and shot dead six policemen.
The whole country was shocked on May 29 when renowned Sunni Mufti Niamuddin Shamezai was assassinated in front of his house, which triggered violence throughout the city with several vehicles torched and property damaged.
The assassination was followed by another mass killing of Shiite Muslims the very next day. A bomb exploded in Imambargah Ali Raza on Jinnah Road when people were offering evening prayers, killing 24 people and wounded more than 100. The impact of the blast was so severe that the dome of the mosque was badly damaged and splattered with blood.
The law enforcement agencies, which unusually act as scapegoats for security failures, are trying their best to make the city safe. Security measures have been beefed up in Karachi. The Pakistani leadership has vowed to restore law and order in the restive city and to eliminate religious extremism and terrorism in the country.
However, there is no sign of truce. It seems the extremists or terrorists are challenging the Pakistani authorities. They are killing people in broad daylight and detonating bombs in holy mosques in Karachi and also other places like Quetta, capital of the western Balochistan Province.
"Those killers have been brainwashed by some evils. They are not Muslims since they kill their Muslim brothers and sisters in mosques," said Zaheed, a young technician working for Dancom, a broadband company based in Islamabad.
Others blamed the government for the attacks. "These attacks are the outcome of Pakistan's pro-US policies," observed Sayed Kamal, a journalist.
People in Karachi have lost their sense of safety. Their faith in the law enforcement agencies has been totally demolished.
They do not know when the circle of violence can come to an end and when Karachi can stop bleeding and calm down. They are urging the government to take every ways and means to stop the port city from becoming a battlefield and a slaughter house. They are praying for peace and tranquility in the day and in the night.
(Xinhua News Agency June 11, 2004)
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