PAKISTAN: The commercial capital Karachi comes to a standstill after political party Muttahida Qaumi Movement calls for a day of mourning in response to a bomb attack that killed its four workers at election office previous night

Record ID: 872725

  • Title: PAKISTAN: The commercial capital Karachi comes to a standstill after political party Muttahida Qaumi Movement calls for a day of mourning in response to a bomb attack that killed its four workers at election office previous night
  • Date: 24th April 2013
  • Summary: MQM OFFICIALS AND WORKERS GATHERED HAND SHOWING BALL-BEARING PARAMILITARY SOLDIERS INVESTIGATORS ON BLAST SITE, AND PEOPLE WATCHING CROWD INJURED GIRL BEING WHEELED INTO HOSPITAL WOUNDED MAN BEING TREATED
  • Embargoed: 9th May 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Pakistan
  • City:
  • Country: Pakistan
  • Topics: Crime
  • Reuters ID: LVA9VSMYCP0D3LY57G4D8T2149O7
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: Pakistan's commercial capital Karachi came to a standstill on Wednesday (April 24) as political party Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) called for a day of mourning after a bomb attack killed four of its workers.
    On Tuesday night, a bomb exploded near a gathering of MQM activists, the dominant political party in the city. Police said two people were killed and two injured later died in hospital, raising the death toll to four. Another 16 people were injured in the attack.
    Karachi police believe that the perpetrators waited for a crowd to gather near a party banner, torn by unidentified men, before setting off the bomb.
    MQM chief Altaf Hussain, who has been in London on self-imposed exile for almost two decades, ordered the immediate closure of all MQM electoral offices in Karachi until further orders and declared Wednesday a day of mourning in the city.

    "MQM announced protest and we shut down all of our election offices and we demand from the state and from the state institutions to arrest the culprits," a senior MQM official and candidate for May elections, Izhar ul Hassan, told Reuters Television at the party's main office.
    Shops and schools were closed and public transport remained off the roads.
    Hundreds of MQM officials and workers attended the funerals of the activists who were killed in the bombing.
    The MQM, a secular party, is locked in a battle with various rival contenders for influence in Karachi, including Pakistan's Taliban movement, which has sought to gain a foothold in various districts on the outskirts of the city in recent years.
    The proximity of the blast to the election meeting will fuel fears that Islamist militants are determined to disrupt campaigning by secular parties ahead of the polls, Pakistan's first transition between elected civilian governments.
    In a separate incident on Tuesday, a suicide car bomber killed at least five people and wounded dozens in the city of Quetta in an attack that came close to killing one of the Hazara community's top politicians, police said.
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