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Karachi's tragedy
[Dawn] KARACHI awoke to scenes of familiar mayhem on Tuesday morning,
A sign it's left the realms of tragedy to become habit.
this time sparked by the murder of a political worker. Armed men reportedly barged into the house of Mansoor Mukhtar, an MQM activist in the city's PIB Colony area, and opened fire, killing the Muttahida worker and injuring his brother who later dead. Following the incident, most localities reverberated with the sound of bullets. A number of people were reportedly killed by gunfire while several vehicles were set ablaze. Shopkeepers downed shutters and the normally bustling streets quickly emptied as the MQM announced a 'day of mourning', while walking out of the National Assembly in protest. Violence was also reported from other cities in Sindh. Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
 had been tense since Sunday night, when a firing incident marred a poetry recital organised by the MQM; one of the attackers, killed by the police, reportedly belonged to the ANP.

Tuesday's events prove that peace in Bloody Karachi is only an illusion; it is not a permanent feature but a temporary arrangement between the various forces wrangling for control of the city and its resources. Organised violence has become part of the city's culture. Before the latest incident, many people, unconvinced by the largely peaceful conditions that had prevailed for some months, had been debating when the next round of violence would break out. This kind of violence subsides as suddenly as it begins, while murders or other incidents of a criminal nature only serve as triggers; no one knows about the real causes of violence, perhaps apart from the city's political players who cut deals behind the scenes and the federal government's mystery man Interior Minister Rehman Malik
Pak politician, current Interior Minister under the Gilani administration. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. He later joined the Pak Peoples Party and was chief security officer to Bhutto. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men.
. Is this cyclical, bloody nightmare the permanent fate of Bloody Karachi and its hapless inhabitants? An incompetent state and those who claim to represent Bloody Karachi are best placed to answer this.

Posted by: Fred 2012-03-29
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=341802