Death toll in Karachi violence goes up to 23; over 80 injured

Karachi, May 12 (UNI) At least 23 people were killed and over 80 injured today as the country's main business centre, Karachi, turned into a battlefield on the arrival of suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry here to address Sindh High Court Bar Association (SHCBA).

Most of the fatalities took place after intense exchange of fire and clashes between opposition supporters of Justice Chaudhry and pro-government Mutahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) near the Jinnah International airport.

Private TV channels showed visuals of blood stained bodies and burnt cars in different areas of the violence-hit port city.

However, Sindh rangers took control of the city in the evening following a high level meeting in Islamabad, which was chaired by President Pervez Musharraf and attended by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and other top security officials.

The Geo TV earlier quoted MQM's provincial legislator Faisal Sabzwari as saying that several Mutahida workers were killed as activists of the opposition parties opened fire on them in different areas.

Radical Jamat-e-Islami also made a similar claim, saying that one of its workers was killed in the indiscriminate firing by the MQM, representing Urdu speaking people, who migrated to Pakistan from India in 1947.

Dozens of vehicles and a petrol pump near the Karachi airport were also torched, as Justice Chaudhry waited inside the airport for his supporters to escort him to the Sindh High Court.

Hundreds of lawyers, Islamists and activists of secular parties, which had announced to accord a historic welcome to Justice Chaudhry were barred from going to the airport to receive the suspended Chief Justice.

''We will not go to the High Court building until our hosts are allowed to come to the airport and receive the Chief Justice,'' Justice Chaudhry's senior lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan told mediapersons here.

He said the decision to prevent the Chief Justice from proceeding to the High Court had proven that the government had no writ and authority in the city.

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