Four MQM detainees among 15 killed in Karachi

[Reuter / Ibrahim Khan]

KARACHI, Pakistan, Oct 10 (Reuter) - Four detained militants
of the Mohajir National Movement (MQM) were among 15 people
killed in a surge of violence in Pakistan's southern city of
Karachi overnight and on Tuesday, officials said.
Interior Minister Naseerullah Babar told a news conference
that well-known MQM leader Fahim Farooqi, alias Fahim Commando,
and three other MQM militants had died in a hail of fire from
MQM gunmen hiding in a house in Karachi's Nazimabad district.
He said five men had escaped from the scene, but a wounded
man and his two sisters, said to have been acting as weapons
couriers for the MQM had been detained for interrogation.
Police said earlier that Fahim Commando, who was arrested in
August, had been killed along with two other MQM detainees when
police had taken them to a house pinpointed as an MQM hideout.
They said unidentified gunmen firing from the house had
killed the MQM militants, but there were no police casualties.
Police said they fired back at the house and later found one
person shot dead inside.
A doctor at the Abbasi Shaheed hospital said that police had
brought in four bullet-riddled bodies, shot at close range.
Hospital sources said the bodies had arrived handcuffed, but the
handcuffs had been removed later in the morgue.
Ajmal Dehlavi, chief negotiator for the MQM in stalled peace
talks with the government, disputed Babar's account.
``We demand a judicial inquiry by a High Court Judge into
the killings of four people who were in police custody,'' he
told Reuters. ``The inquiry should investigate whether they were
killed in an encounter or gunned down by police inside a
house.''
Dehlavi said MQM leaders would meet later on Tuesday to
decide how to respond and the movement's London-based leader
Altaf Hussain would make a statement on the killings.
In other incidents, police said 11 people, one a policeman,
had been killed elsewhere in Karachi overnight and on Tuesday.
The shooting of Fahim Commando and his companions followed
Monday's grenade attack on a building housing the Sindh
provincial government, which Babar blamed on the MQM.
The MQM has denied responsibility for the attack, in which
half a dozen rocket-propelled grenades were fired, wounding five
people, starting fires in the secretariat offices, smashing
windows and spreading panic in central Karachi.
Babar said at least two MQM teams had fired the grenades
from a nearby building site. ``The motive was to spread fear in
Karachi,'' Babar said. Two people had been arrested, he added.
He said the attackers had intended to destroy the files of
the government's economic package of development projects for
Karachi worth 121 billion rupees ($3.7 billion).
The MQM has frequently accused the security forces of
killing its militants in cold blood and then saying they had
been shot dead in clashes.
Another MQM leader, Farooq Dada, was shot with three others
near Karachi airport on August 2 in what the MQM said were
extra-judicial killings. Police said they died in a clash.
Babar said that in the past three months at least 102
``terrorists'' had been killed and about 600 arrested out of
1,500 he said were operating in the industrial port city.
``Peace will be restored in Karachi soon,'' he declared.
The government and the MQM blame each other for violence
that has killed more than 1,550 people in Karachi this year.
The MQM is fighting for more political and economic rights
for Karachi's majority Mohajir community, mainly Urdu-speaking
Moslems who migrated from India after Partition in 1947.
Peace talks between the government and MQM began in July,
but failed to make progress and are currently stalled.

[Reuter / Ibrahim Khan]

KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuter) - Four detained militants of the

Mohajir National Movement (MQM) were among 15 people killed in a
surge of violence in Pakistan's southern city of Karachi

overnight and Tuesday, officials said.

Interior Minister Naseerullah Babar told a news conference
that well-known MQM leader Fahim Farooqi, alias Fahim Commando,
and three other MQM militants had died in a hail of fire from
MQM gunmen hiding in a house in Karachi's Nazimabad district.
He said five men had escaped from the scene, but a wounded
man and his two sisters, said to have been acting as weapons
couriers for the MQM had been detained for interrogation.
Police said earlier that Fahim Commando, who was arrested in
August, had been killed along with two other MQM detainees when
police had taken them to a house pinpointed as an MQM hideout.
They said unidentified gunmen firing from the house had
killed the MQM militants, but there were no police casualties.
Police said they fired back at the house and later found one

person shot and killed inside.

A doctor at the Abbasi Shaheed hospital said that police had
brought in four bullet-riddled bodies, shot at close range.
Hospital sources said the bodies had arrived handcuffed, but the
handcuffs had been removed later in the morgue.
Ajmal Dehlavi, chief negotiator for the MQM in stalled peace
talks with the government, disputed Babar's account.
``We demand a judicial inquiry by a High Court Judge into
the killings of four people who were in police custody,'' he
told Reuters. ``The inquiry should investigate whether they were
killed in an encounter or gunned down by police inside a
house.''