Islamabad: Tension gripped parts of Karachi yesterday following an attack on an office of the powerful Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) party overnight and the deaths of four people yesterday in shooting incidents in different areas of the southern port city.
Reports said the hit-and-run attack by gunmen on the MQM office in the Gulistan-i-Jauhar area late on Friday left one party activist dead and six others injured, two of them critically.
London-based MQM chief Altaf Hussain has reportedly called upon the members and supporters of his party, which is a partner of the Pakistan Peoples Party in the ruling coalition, to exercise restraint.
In the violence that followed the attack, seven vehicles were set on fire by unidentified men in the Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Landhi and Buffer Zone areas, according to media reports
Administration officials in Karachi said paramilitary Rangers deployed in Karachi for law and order duties had been reinforced and additional police pickets assigned to maintain a vigil in sensitive areas of the city.
The government of the Sindh province has repeatedly vowed to bring to an end the continuing cycle of targeted killings in the provincial capital whose victims include members of various parties and ethnic groups.
The violence has claimed dozens of lives over the past few weeks.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told reporters on Saturday that the Sindh government must take effective measures to address the causes of the violence and put a stop to targeted killings.
