Violence in Lyari continues on second day

KARACHI: The situation remained tense in Lyari on the second day while the miscreants blocked Lyari Road by burning tyres, Geo News reported Saturday. Shops and businesses were forced to remain closed today as aerial firing incidents were reported in several areas.

The situation in Lyari took another nosedive on Friday when the area reverberated with gunshot and rocket fires throughout the day in which six people were killed and 17 injured.

Those killed included an eight-year-old boy. The injured, mostly children, were taken to the Civil Hospital. The Lyariites got the first hint of what the day was to hold for them when they saw a rocket smashing the first floor of an apartment block near Eidgah very early in the morning on Friday, killing a fifty-year-old man, Hanif.

The rocket was believed to have been fired at some police personnel. The attack was succeeded by a spell of firing around the Lyari General Hospital, injuring Abdullah, Abid, Arif, Babar (all in their twenties) and an unidentified victim.

Another round of shooting incidents around the evening aggravated the situation during which unidentified men fired at a bus stop, killing Taj Wali, 25, on the spot. Hayat Gull, 30, was killed by a stray bullet on Miranaka bridge.

Four children sustained gunshot wounds in separate incidents taking place near Hotel Lyari, in Lea Market and opposite the Eidgah also around the evening. An eight-year-old boy, Zakir, died after being hit by a stray bullet near the Aath Chowk. Another man, Rustam, 30, was shot dead near the Dhobi Ghat area of Lyari.A man in his 40s, Yasin, died of gunshot wounds after he was hit by a stray bullet outside his home in Bihar Colony around the evening.

Late in the evening, two more rockets were fired near the Hub Chowki bus stop in the congested Moosa Lane.

The firing and rocket attacks since seven in the morning was reportedly in reaction to a number of midnight raids in the area in which the CID police had picked up a number of suspects. The latest bout of violence in Lyari was triggered after the killing of an alleged worker of the defunct People’s Aman Committee on April 2.

The Lea Market police had had no orders to retaliate even though they were being attacked by hand grenades and rockets by unidentified people, the police said.

People on rooftops fired straight at police mobiles and vans on the entrance to the area.

DSP Zafar Ali Shah told that armed men had been wreaking havoc in Eidgah, Baghdadi, Lea Market, near the Lyari General Hospital and on the Napier Road since Friday morning.

As sporadic firing went on, shopkeepers and taxi drivers squatted near a row of closed shops.

In view of the law and order situation, the Board of Secondary Education Karachi (BSEK) postponed the mathematics paper scheduled for today (Saturday) at the six examination centres in Lyari.