Clashes that killed at least 45 people overnight in Karachi scared residents off its streets Tuesday as Pakistan's largest city was on alert for more violence after the shooting of a leader in a dominant political party. Officials said more than 100 people were wounded and dozens of vehicles and shops torched by mobs who took to the streets after Raza Haider, a member of the provincial Sindh Assembly from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), was gunned down Monday along with his bodyguard while attending a funeral. The government blamed the Taliban and the banned militant group Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) for the killing of the lawmaker. Twenty people have been arrested in connection with the violence, federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik told the Senate Tuesday. There had been threats against Haider's funeral, but it passed peacefully and Karachi endured a tense calm in the late afternoon. Police said they have also arrested four members of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) militant group Tuesday in two different raids, though they were not connected to Monday's attack. “They belong to the LeJ's Fazal Mehsud group and were involved in the attacks in Lahore on the Ahmadi mosque,” said senior police official Fayyaz Khan, referring to attacks in May on two mosques of the Ahmadi sect. “We are also interrogating them on different acts of violence in Karachi,” said Khan. The latest violence once again raised fears of instability in Karachi, a city of 18 million and Pakistan's commercial hub, and about the flight of Taliban militants to the city after army offensives against their bases in Pakistan's northwest. Some analysts said the violence could ultimately affect the economy. Karachi is home to the country's main port, the central bank and the stock exchange.
