KARACHI,
Pakistan — A street fight between political rivals
spiraled into rioting in Pakistan's biggest city Wednesday,
with armed men smashing cars and setting fires. Five people
burned to death in one building and two were shot and killed.
It was the worst political violence Pakistan's new
government has faced since taking office last month, vowing to
curtail the powers of U.S.-allied President Pervez Musharraf
and cement democracy after eight years of military rule.
The trouble broke out when pro- and anti-government
attorneys punched and beat each other with sticks near the
main courts complex in Karachi. Soon after, armed men began
shooting and torching cars in several districts, witnesses
said.
A nearby building was set ablaze, and five
charred bodies were found on the sixth floor, said police
officer Syed Sulaiman. Two other people died of gunshot
wounds, including a paramedic whose ambulance came under fire
while trying to help the injured.
Salman Naguri, a 22-year-old shopkeeper, said he saw
two men on a motorbike shoot at the passing ambulance, which
crashed into an electricity pylon.
"For 15 or 20
minutes, an injured man was crying for help from inside the
ambulance but nobody helped him," Naguri said. When another
ambulance crew arrived, the man was dead, he said.
It
was the second episode to tarnish a powerful lawyers' movement
that led months of protests against Musharraf, galvanizing his
opponents and contributing to the defeat of his allies in
February parliamentary elections.
Attorneys from the
movement were involved in an assault Tuesday on former Cabinet
minister Sher Afgan Niazi, who was beaten as he emerged from
his office.
A group of lawyers allied with the
pro-Musharraf Mutahida Quami Movement, had been protesting the
assault on Niazi when the violence erupted in Karachi.
Police and witnesses said lawyers leaving a bar
association meeting got into a brawl with the protesters.
Minutes later, gunmen in civilian clothes arrived on
motorbikes and in minibuses and began smashing car windows and
stealing their radios, said Abdul Majid, 50, who was selling
curry and bread from a cart near the scene.
They also
fired shots into the air. Majid said he retreated up a side
street with several cowering police officers.
The
violence comes as the government, led by the party of slain
former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, has been trying to win
over political rivals. It could need their help to restore
Supreme Court judges purged by the Musharraf and strip him of
his power to fire the prime minister.
Musharraf allies
have seized on the trouble to accuse the new administration of
persecuting and humiliating its opponents.