Gangs torched vehicles and a shop in Pakistan’s largest city yesterday after a senior politician from the local ruling party was stabbed to death in London.
Gas stations, schools and markets in Karachi were closed and no public transport was running as news of the stabbing of Imran Farooq spread. The city has a history of political violence, and revenge attacks and acts of arson often follow killings.
Farooq was a founding member of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), one of Pakistan’s major parties and the largest in the coalition governing Karachi. The MQM is also an important member of the federal government in Islamabad.
PHOTO: AFP
Elsewhere in the city, youths blocked the main road and torched two buses, said Asif Khan, an area resident. Local media reports also said some vehicles were burned and shots fired late on Thursday in the city of more than 16 million.
Farooq was found with head injuries and stab wounds outside his home in north London on Thursday.
British police said they were called to reports of a serious assault in the Edgware district of the capital at 5:30pm.
“Officers found an Asian man, aged 50, with stab wounds and head injuries. Paramedics treated the man, but he was pronounced dead at the scene at 6:37pm,” a spokesman for London’s Metropolitan Police said.
In Pakistan, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani condemned what his office called Farooq’s “assassination.”
Streets in Karachi were largely empty as MQM declared 10 days of mourning and scrapped birthday celebrations for its leader, Altaf Hussain, who is also based in Britain.
The city is plagued by ethnic and sectarian killings, crime and kidnappings, exacerbating woes in a country battling with unprecedented flooding that has killed more than 1,780 people and affected up to 21 million.
The murder of an MQM lawmaker, Raza Haider, in Karachi last month triggered a wave of political and ethnic killing in the city that left dozens dead.
Traders and transporters announced shut downs in a sign of mourning.
“The city’s traders have decided to close markets today to express our sorrow over the death,” the chairman of the All Karachi Traders Unity, Ateeq Mirsaid, said.
Farooq’s father Farooq Ahmed said he spoke to his son two days ago.
“We don’t know exact reasons behind the incident, let the police to investigate and decide,” Ahmed told reporters outside his house.
“I had talked to him on telephone two days ago. He was in his typical lighter mood and expressed nothing which we could say was extraordinary. He had no bodyguards and would live like any common man in London,” Ahmed said “We’ll bury his body in Pakistan.”
Farooq and Hussain created the All Pakistan Mohajir Students Organization in 1978 — representing the Urdu-speaking majority population in Karachi.
He was its secretary-general and remained so after the student wing was converted into MQM, a full-fledged party, six years later.
He was twice elected a member of parliament, but went into hiding in 1992 when the government ordered a military crackdown against party activists in Karachi.
He was wanted over scores of charges, including murder and torture. Farooq always maintained the charges were politically motivated and he re-emerged in London in 1999, claiming asylum in Britain.
London has hosted a number of exiled Pakistani politicians. Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf currently lives in the British capital.
Farooq is survived by his widow Shumaila, also a former lawmaker, and two sons.
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