Countrywide protests, killings and arson

Dawn Report, 29 December

ISLAMABAD: At least 27 people were killed and many wounded in violence during a nationwide outpouring of grief and a protest strike over Benazir Bhutto’s assassination while army was deployed in 16 districts of Sindh and paramilitary forces elsewhere in the country.

A complete general strike and funeral prayer congregations in all the country’s four provinces, Azad Kashmir and Northern Areas marked the day as the former prime minister, killed in an unidentified assassin’s gun-and-bomb attack in Rawalpindi on Thursday, was buried beside her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto at their ancestral Garhi Khuda Bux village.

But protests at several places turned violent, with demonstrators attacking and burning both public and private properties, mostly in Sindh where 17 people were reported killed in Karachi and 10 in eight towns in other parts of the province.

An army statement in Rawalpindi said the troops had been deployed in 16 Sindh districts, including Karachi, on the requisition of the provincial government, to assist the local administration restore law and order.

“Army authorities have been asked to coordinate law-enforcement action being conducted by police and (paramilitary) Rangers,” said the statement, quoting a spokesman of the Inter-Services Public Relations Directorate. “In case the situation goes out of hand of these agencies, army units will be employed to restore law and order.”

It said the army had taken over security of “sensitive installations and national” assets in Karachi and other places in Sindh and that troops were patrolling in the troubled localities of Karachi, Larkana, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Thatta and Badin.

SINDH: In Karachi, seven workers were burnt to death after a factory was set on fire. Two policemen were also killed. Hospitals received eight bodies with gunshot wounds. Over 400 vehicles and 18 banks were burnt in the city since Thursday night.

In other parts of Sindh, incidents of violence completely paralysed civic life on second day of mourning with 10 people killed and around two dozens injured.

Two deaths each were reported from Jacobabad and Thatta and one each from Mirpurkhas, Hyderabad, Badin, Matiari, Tando Allahyar and Khairpur.

Government properties, banks, private vehicles, gas and petrol stations, telephone exchanges were prime targets of attackers in every district.

The bungalow of former Sindh chief minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, who a family member said, had gone to Saudi Arabia for “Umra pilgrimage” on Thursday night, was torched in G.M.B. Colony in Qasimabad.

ISLAMABAD: Protests in Islamabad largely remained peaceful but students of the Quaid-i-Azam University burnt a bus of their own institution.

PUNJAB: In the cities and towns of Punjab, protesters became violent in several towns, burning property and election campaign banners of candidates belonging to the formerly ruling Pakistan Muslim League.

Sargodha witnessed constant clashes between police and protesters for hours, according to the Online news agency.

In Attock district, PPP activists set fire to posters and flags of a PML candidate for the National Assembly, former Punjab chief minister Chaudhry Pervez Elahi.

Jaranwala also witnessed a rowdy day with protests, cases of arson and stoning of a Wapda building and a local school. Six police personnel were reported injured there.

NWFP: In the NWFP, enraged protesters set a police post and railway station on fire at Taru Jabba, near Peshawar, snatched guns from police and also set ablaze two official motorcycles at the police post.

The police post was set on fire after police reportedly fired in the air to disperse the crowd.

The protesters set ablaze at least three vehicles and a motorbike in other areas and an office of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement at Peshawar’s Nishtarabad Chowk and the PML provincial office at Gulbahar locality.

BALOCHISTAN: In Balochistan, a railway station, several banks and other public and private buildings were set on fire as riots erupted in some areas of the province.

At least four policemen were injured in attacks on police posts while Quetta remained cut off by rail as Pakistan Railways cancelled all outgoing trains while passenger trains that had left on Thursday evening for Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi were stopped at Sibi railway station and returned to Quetta on Friday morning.

Jaffarabad district administration called out Frontier Corps personnel to control the law and order situation.

In Turbat, police arrested 15 PPP workers for forcibly closing shops.

But the overall law and order situation in the province remained under control after the government deployed extra personnel of police, the Balochistan Constabulary and Frontier Corps in Quetta and other areas.

However, at least three banks were burnt down in Dera Allahyar, a town neighbouring Sindh, where PPP workers and supporters took over roads at around 9am and blocked the highway between Balochistan and Sindh.

The protesters also attacked and set on fire branches of three banks. According to reports, currency notes worth several millions of rupees and all record were burnt.

Sources said a group of protesters attacked Dera Allahyar railway station and torched it. They also burnt down the office of Nadra, the district office of Excise and Taxation and PML election office and attacked a bank branch, the office of District Police Officer and Civil Hospital but law-enforcement agencies did not allow them to enter these buildings.

Riots were also reported in Dera Murad Jamali where protesters burnt a bank branch and destroyed the official vehicle of a senior police officer.

Protesters also attacked police posts in Dera Allahyar and beat up policemen, four of whom were injured.