KARACHI — Pakistan will recruit 3,000 extra police in a bid to stem repeated outbreaks of violence in its largest city of Karachi, the country's interior minister said Friday.
The teeming city of 16 million is the country's economic capital, home to its stock exchange and an Arabian Sea port where NATO supplies dock ready to be trucked overland to support the US-led war effort in Afghanistan.
More than 70 people have died as a result of politically motivated killings since Saturday. In recent months, Karachi has suffered the worst such violence in years with 85 people killed after a lawmaker was shot dead in August.
"We will recruit 3,000 more policemen in Karachi," Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters, blaming the violence on organised crime networks.
"Action will be taken against anyone who dares challenge the writ of the state," he added, but declined to reveal any details.
Malik said that after "drug mafia" and "land-grabbing mafia" the city was now facing "extortion mafia".
Malik said four murders were reported in the city overnight "but no targeted killings" and urged political parties to work together for peace.
The interior minister of the southern province of Sindh, of which Karachi is the capital, said police on Friday killed a notorious robber Qadri Chachar who had a bounty of 1.5 million rupees (17,500 dollars) on his head.
Zulifqar Mirza said police also arrested a wanted "targeted killer" along with up to 15 other suspects in connection with the recent violence.
Authorities had said previously that more than 80 suspects were rounded up and interrogated over the killings.
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which represents the Urdu-speaking majority in Karachi and the Awami National Party (ANP), whose power is rooted in Pashtun migrants from the northwest, blame each other over the violence.
(source:afp)
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