Pakistan mounts operation against Karachi killings

Pakistan police and paramilitary rangers have launched a major operation in the biggest city Karachi to quell bloodshed that has claimed more than 100 lives in the past week, officials said Wednesday.

The latest spasm of violence is the worst criminal and ethnic unrest to hit Pakistan's teeming financial capital in 16 years.

"The rangers and police conducted joint operations in various parts of the city overnight," a rangers spokesman told AFP, adding the action continued until morning.

"We interrogated several suspects and formally arrested 14 people."

Security forces targeted Liyari, Orangi and other neighbourhoods troubled by deadly violence blamed on ethnic and criminal gangs that has been plaguing the city for months, leaving hundreds of people dead.

Some of the detained were suspected of involvement in the killings and others indulged in extortion, said the spokesman.

"We have found a large number of weapons and ammunition from them," he added. "The operation against the killers and criminals will continue."

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Monday flew to Karachi and urged the provincial government to restore peace as quickly as possible, underlining how worried authorities are about the situation.

The violence has been linked to ethnic tensions between the Mohajirs, the Urdu-speaking majority represented by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), and Pashtun migrants affiliated to the Awami National Party (ANP).

The main ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP), which was elected in 2008 after nine years of military rule, insists that civilian authorities are capable of controlling the issue.

Sharjeel Memon, Sindh provincial information minister, said the government had planned a "surgical operation" to end the killings.

Some 108 people had been killed since last Wednesday, a senior security official told AFP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to media.

Security officials said they had found five bodies of people who had been kidnapped in recent days.

The new operation was launched after politicians, industrialists and citizens stepped up calls for the army to intervene to rid the city of the killings.

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