Pakistan railway bore the most severe brunt of violent protests. 32 railway stations including two junctions, 16 trains and numerous tracks were torched, and as a result of cancellation of train services, they are incurring huge amount of losses. As usual the worst affected city remains the unfortunate Karachi. In Korangi, Lyari, Sohrab Goth, and other parts of cities, miscreants have burned down and looted banks, shops and homes. They even didn’t spare the ambulances and offices of Edhi and other welfare trusts.
Uptill last reports more than 50 people have been killed in Karachi alone in riots since the death of former Prime Minsiter Benazir Bhutto. Initially during a nationwide outpouring of grief and a protest strike over Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, administration and law enforcement agencies vanished in the thin year, and miscreants wrecked havoc in the cities. People’s Party workers should carry on the protests and the whole nation joins them in the mourning, but they must also identify and eliminate the naughty elements who are destroying home.
Army authorities have been asked to coordinate law-enforcement action being conducted by police and (paramilitary) Rangers. It is relieving that troops are patrolling the Karachi and other cities of interior Sindh and they are guarding the sensitive infrastructure and installation.
In a very unfortuante event in Karachi, seven workers in a plastic factory were burned to death. They died while entrapped in the factory, when the mob torched the factory before looting. In other parts of Sindh, incidents of violence completely paralysed civic life on second day of mourning with 25 people killed and around 55 injured.
I strongly condemn the killing of Benazir. The government of Pakistan must bring the perpetrators to justice. This is for the survival of Pakistan. But the destruction of our own home is simply intolerable.
