About 35 people, most of them rival political activists, have been killed in three days of violence in Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city which has a long history of factional bloodshed although it has been relatively peaceful in recent years.

Karachi is home to Pakistan’s main stock market, the central bank and its two main ports. While investors in Pakistan have got used to almost daily militant violence in the northwest, bloodshed in Karachi has a more direct impact on sentiment.

The Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), the dominant political party in Karachi, said the provincial government, dominated by President Asif Ali Zardari’s party, had failed to stop the violence in the sprawling city of 18 million people.

The MQM is a member of Zardari’s federal coalition government and the threat to leave the alliance could destabilise the government which is already facing criticism over corruption, a potent Taliban insurgency and a troubled economy.

“The terrorists of the Lyari gang have complete protection from some elements in the Sindh government,” the MQM said in a statement late on Saturday, referring to the neighbourhood of Lyari dominated by Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

Though in the PPP-led coalitions at both the federal and provincial level, the PPP and MQM have long been the main contenders for power in Karachi. The PPP dominates in rural areas of Sindh province, of which Karachi is capital.

The provincial government denies any involvement in the violence and says it is striving to stop it.

“Gangsters, drug mafia”

The MQM members of the National Assembly and upper house Senate had asked their leaders to be allowed to leave the government and sit on the opposition benches, the party said.

The MQM won 25 seats in the 342-member National Assembly in a February 2008 general election.

Its departure from the coalition, while not leading to the government’s fall, would likely put pressure on the PPP to win over other parties and independents to shore up its position.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had discussed the situation with the MQM’s leader, Altaf Hussain, who lives in self-imposed exile in London.

They said they would ask their members to avoid provocation and help restore peace, Gilani’s office said.

The city’s police chief said reinforcements including paramilitary soldiers forces had been deployed in trouble spots.

A senior provincial government official said gangsters were taking advantage of the tension and the violence could get worse.

“We have to find quick fixes because there’s political and ethnic rivalry, while criminals, gangsters and the drug mafia have also been involved,” said the official who declined to be identified.

Karachi has been largely been free of militant violence over the past couple of years, but a bomb attack at a minority Shia Muslim procession in late December fuelled concern that the militants were expanding their fight to the city.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (indeterminate, 1881–10 November 1938) was a Turkish army officer, revolutionary statesman, and founder of the Republic of Turkey as well as its first President.
Atatürk became known as an extremely capable military officer by being the only undefeated Ottoman commander during World War I.[1] Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, he led the Turkish national movement in the Turkish War of Independence. Having established a provisional government in Ankara, he defeated the forces sent by the Allies. His successful military campaigns led to the liberation of the country and to the establishment of Turkey. During his presidency, Atatürk embarked upon a program of political, economic, and cultural reforms. An admirer of the Age of Enlightenment, he sought to transform the former Ottoman Empire into a modern, democratic, and secular nation-state. The principles of Atatürk’s reforms, upon which modern Turkey was established, are referred to as Kemalism.