Wednesday, 1, June, 2005 (23, Rabi` al-Thani, 1426)

Karachi Violence Toll Hits 11
Huma Aamir Malik & Agencies —

 

KARACHI, 1 June 2005 — Six workers of the US fast food chain KFC died when a restaurant was torched by a mob protesting the suicide bombing in a mosque in Karachi that killed five others, police said yesterday. The toll from Monday’s violence rose to 11.

Violence spread to other parts of Karachi yesterday as angry protesters set ablaze at least 12 buses in different parts of the city.

Landhi, Korangi, SITE, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Kharadar and M.A. Jinnah Road were virtually shut down. Traffic was thin in most parts of the city and incidents of violence were reported. The religious Alliance, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, has called for strike today.

Monday’s attack on the Shiite mosque in a middle-class neighborhood and the ensuing riots have triggered fears that a new wave of sectarian violence might spread to other parts of the country.

Four employees of the restaurant, whose outlets are often targeted during outbursts of anti-American anger in Pakistan, burned to death while another two froze to death after hiding in the walk-in cold storage, police said. “It was very sad scene. When we found the bodies in the freezer one of them had a cell phone in his hand with a missed call from his wife,” Karachi fire brigade chief Azam Ali told AFP.

The mob went on the rampage after three attackers believed to be from a militant organization stormed the Madinat-ul-Ilm mosque in Karachi’s Gulshan district during evening prayers late Monday.

One of the assailants died in a gunbattle with police who were standing guard at the door of the building. The other blew himself up and the third sustained a serious head injury, apparently in a fall, city police chief Tariq Jamil told AFP.

Two worshippers and a policeman also died in the attack, while 21 people were hospitalized, four of them in a critical condition. Hospital officials said the surviving attacker had regained consciousness. “He identified himself as Jamil,” senior police investigator Manzoor Mughal told AFP.

Mughal said the man said he was affiliated to Jaish-e-Mohammad, banned by President Pervez Musharraf in 2001. But he said “normally these militants hide the actual facts and it takes time to verify their identity.” Police also said the surviving attacker actually belonged to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, one of Pakistan’s most violent sectarian groups, which has links with Al-Qaeda extremist network. Police were guarding the room of the suspect but doctors would not allow them to interrogate him.

“The proper investigation would start when he is fully recovered,” Mughal said. The man may help police uncover possible links to a suicide bombing on Friday which killed 19 people, most of them Shiites, at a shrine in the capital Islamabad.

“We have issued instructions to all the four provinces to beef up security to be on full alert against any possible attacks,” Interior Secretary Kamal Shah told AFP.

Thousands of people have been killed in religious unrest in Pakistan in recent years, with attacks including bomb blasts, suicide bombings and targeted killings. Last year 160 people died.

“It is a despicable act and we condemn it. We will launch full investigations into it,” Information Minister Sheikh Rashid told AFP after the Karachi attack.

Yesterday police fired tear gas and used truncheons to disperse rioters who set fire to vehicles after the funerals of two of the blast victims, which were held at the same mosque.

Police detained about 30 youths for damaging public property but the “situation is now under control,” local police officer Athar Rashid Butt said.

Security forces were placed on high alert following the Islamabad blast, but police were unable to stop the mob in Karachi, which also torched two gas stations and a number of vehicles in addition to the KFC outlet.

Police and firemen said they found two bodies lying on the ground when they opened the door of the gutted restaurant after family members informed the KFC management that the employees did not return home late into the night.

During the search police found two more bodies from the first floor while the bodies of two other employees were found frozen in the KFC cold storage, Jamil, the city police chief, told AFP.

Five of the victims were aged between 25 and 30 years while the sixth was a guard aged about 50, Jamil said.

Tension was already high in volatile Karachi after the abduction and murder of a local leader of the main fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami party in the city on Monday.