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29 March 2024

Death toll rises to 25 in Karachi violence

Published
By AP

Gunmen have killed at least 25 people in Karachi in the past 24 hours, raising tensions in Pakistan’s largest city as voters cast ballots to replace a provincial lawmaker murdered in August.

Police said they were still investigating the motives behind the shootings, but many so-called “target killings” in Karachi have been linked to gangs controlled by the city’s main political parties - the Muttahida Quami Movement and the Awami National Party - which have been feuding for much of the last 20 years.

The MQM claims to represent the Urdu-speaking descendants of those people who came to Karachi from India soon after the birth of Pakistan in 1947. It likes to speak out against the so-called Talibanisation of the city, a jab at the Awami National Party, which represents ethnic Pashtuns from the northwest.