Politicians call indefinite strike in Karachi

Karachi went on an indefinite strike Wednesday, with businesses, shops, schools and transporters ordered to shutdown until police arrest those responsible for the city's worst bomb attack in years. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which controls most of Pakistan's largest city, ordered the strike three days after a powerful car bomb killed 50 people and wounded around 140 others in Shiite Muslim neighbourhood Abbas Town. Sunday's bomb was the fourth in a series of major attacks on the minority Shiite community since January 10 that have killed more than 250 people. While there has been no claim for the Karachi bombing, the banned extremist Sunni outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi said it carried out the previous attacks. There has been widespread outrage at the government's apparent powerlessness in the face of rising sectarian violence, which has raised alarming questions about the security of general elections due to be held by mid-May. "We are starting a peaceful movement right now against the terror attack on Abbas Town and the government's failure in arresting the terrorists despite the lapse of three days," Raza Haroon, an MQM leader, told a news conference. "We appeal to all traders, businessmen and transporters to suspend their activities during our protest." The MQM last month withdrew from the main ruling coalition in a move interpreted as a way of jockeying for political advantage as parliament prepares to dissolve in mid-March. Karachi, a city of 18 million people, contributes 42 percent of Pakistan's GDP but is rife with murder and kidnappings, plagued for years by ethnic, sectarian and political violence, and campaigners warn the situation is getting worse. Haroon conceded that the strike would cause "difficulties" but appealed on people not resort to violence. "We appeal to the people not to harm government or private property during the peaceful protest, which will continue until the killers of innocent people are arrested," Haroon said. Shootings were reported in parts of Karachi, and other southern cities Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas and Nawabshah, forcing shopkeepers to close up. Provincial paramilitary chief Rizwan Akhtar says his forces arrested 59 suspects over the blast. Pakistani forces frequently detain people en masse after major bombings but few if any are ever charged. The head of an organisation of private schools in Karachi, Khalid Shah, said schools would remain closed "until the security situation improves". Ateeq Mir, the head of a Karachi traders' union, called on MQM to withdraw its appeal for an indefinite strike on the grounds that it would be bad for business. MQM controls almost all the city, apart from the working class neighbourhood of Lyari, a bastion of support for the PPP, the main ruling party at a federal level, and areas home to new migrants, ethnic Pashtuns from the northwest. The local government said earlier Wednesday that Fayyaz Leghari, police chief of southern province Sindh, had been removed from his post over the bomb attack. Leghari was also removed from his post in June 2011, after security forces shot dead an unarmed man in a public park. He was reinstated last year. In a Supreme Court hearing in Karachi on Wednesday, chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry slammed the government and security agencies for negligence, demanding to know why heads had not rolled after Sunday's attack. "We'll not allow anyone to enjoy public office at the cost of public taxes and do nothing to safeguard their lives and properties," Chaudhry said. "Those who died in the blast and others who are continuously being targeted in other terrorist acts are not foreigners. They are our own blood, they pay taxes for our salaries." Anwer Mansoor Khan, lawyer for Sindh provincial government, told the hearing that Leghari and a number of junior police officials had also been removed from their posts and an inquiry would decide whether any were guilty of negligence.