The latest flurry of targeted killings has continued tonight, with officials now saying that over 30 people have been killed in the attacks, which began on Friday. Both major political blocs in the city, MQM and ANP, are blaming the other for the bulk of the killings.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik has announced that the national government is going to impose a “partial curfew” on much of Karachi, and that security forces would begin imposing disarmament across several regions in the city.
Malik refused to say what a “partial curfew” actually meant and sought to downplay the political aspect of the killings, saying that some unnamed “third element” was the one responsible for most of the killings.
But provincial officials suggested that the “partial curfew” didn’t mean anything at all, with top adviser Sharmila Farooqi claiming that the operation would not be imposed anywhere inside Karachi itself, but theoretically might in some outlying area.
