KARACHI, Pakistan Reuter, Dec. 15: Pakistani troops with shoot on sight orders patrolled Karachi today after at least 55 people were Killed and ‘more than 300 injured in the city’s worst single explosion of ethnic bloodshed.

Authorities last night clamped’ an indefinite curfew on ill districts, including Orangi town where witnesses said armed Pashtuns went on an orgy of killing, wounding and burning yesterday against the rival Mohajir community.

Local authorities blamed the violence on smugglers angered by a current sweep against gunrunning and drug trafficking, but pledged to continue their cleanup of Pakistan’s biggest city.

Doctors said 54 bodies from’ Orangi town were brought to hospitals yesterday, while 310 people were admitted with injuries, half of them from bullet wounds.

Police sources said a man was: stabbed to death in another area ‘and several vehicles set alight as the violence threatened to spread across the sprawling city.

‘Orangi town residents told Reuters by telephone that the death toll was probably far higher than 55, saying that many people had been burned inside their houses. Witnesses reported seeing crowds of Pashtun men hurling teenagers into burning buildings, dragging women out of houses and beating them and stabbing young boys.

‘On Saturday night an action committee of five Pashtun organizations threatened to paralysis Karachi. Pakistan’s business, trade, and industrial center unless the operation was halted.

But an official note yesterday declared, “The search will continue until all the unauthorized hidden weapons and narcotics are detected and recovered”, The theme was reiterated by the Chief Minister of Sind province, which includes Karachi, Syed Ghous Ali Shah, who pledged to punish the killers. “These few people have taken the law into their own hands only. because the government launched the cleanup operation in Shorab Goth”, he said in a statement. “I cannot allow the people to suffer for their entire life due to the smuggling an storing of such deadly drugs in my province”.

Police said an operation had also begun to move 25,000 refugees from the guerrilla war in Afghanistan out of the city.

The official news agency APP said an indefinite curfew had been imposed on 11 districts, including Orangi town and Sohrab Goth. Police sources said the troops had been ordered to shoot curfew violators on sight after announcements of the measure had been broadcast over the loudspeaker of local mosques.

“The Pashtuns looked like barbarians, they were interested in killing Mohajirs and looting and arson”, one injured man told reporters from his hospital bed. “One Pashtun was saying he would kill at least six Mohajirs from each house”

The two communities have clashed repeatedly over more than 20 years and last month at least 58 people were killed in several days of rioting.

The Mohajirs, who make up around a quarter of Karachi’s population of more than seven million, migrated to Pakistan when British ruled India was partitioned in 1947.

They have been waging an increasingly vigorous campaign against alleged official discrimination by Pashtuns, who come from northwest Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Punjabis.

The authorities, much criticised after last month’s riots for not controlling the flow of drugs and guns, moved against the Pashtun stronghold of Sohrab Goth early on Friday.

Thousands of troops surrounded the area, the country’s main smuggling center, and carried out house to house searches.

‘The city administration said yesterday that 300 kilos (660 pounds) of heroin, worth 300 million dollars in American street prices, 100 kilos (220 pounds) of opium and six tons of marijuana had been seized.

Article extracted from this publication >> December 19, 1986