Several arrested after MQM, PTI activists clash in Karimabad

KARACHI: Police resorted to baton-charge to disperse charged activists of Muttahia Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) who chanted slogans against each other outside an election camp of the PTI in Karimabad here on Thursday night.

Several people were arrested after the clash in which a PTI flag was torched and its camp office was surrounded by reportedly angry MQM activists. Several PTI workers and supporters were trapped inside the camp.

The normalcy prevailed after MQM leaders Faisal Sabzwari and Haider Abbas Rizvi reached at the site and urged workers to show restraint and stay away from the PTI camp.

The situation got out of hands when MQM, whose candidate for NA-246 Kanwar Naveed leads the early vote count, workers and supporters staring celebrating early results outside the PTI camp. The PTI workers also responded with slogans against the MQM.

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Charged MQM workers and supporters then pelted stones at the camp, tore down PTI banners and torched one of its flags before Sabzwari and Rizvi arrived at the scene.

They appealed to workers to remain peaceful and celebrate their apparently imminent victory in today’s by-poll at Azizabad’s Jinnah Ground.

Rangers and police contingents reached the site later and baton-charged to disperse the crowds. Several people were also arrested on the occasion.