Karachi; A Victim of Immigrants Fight

Both ANP the Pashtun immigrants and MQM the Indian immigrants are fighting an endless battle for the control of the country's financial capital Karachi.

MQM won the byelections monday, after shooting attacks killed at least 22 people in the city on saturday night. MQM's rival, the ethnic Pashtun-based Awami National Party (ANP), boycotted the byelection after complaining that the MQM would rig the poll.

The MQM accused the ANP of carrying out the killings, an allegation it denied. "Soon after announcing its boycott of the byelection, ANP's terrorists began killing innocent citizens in a bid to sabotage the election process," the party said in a statement.

Stock market investors keep a wary eye on tension in Karachi, home to Pakistan's main port, stock exchange and central bank and the main gateway for Western military supplies bound for neighbouring land-locked Afghanistan.

Every killing in the city is followed by accusations and counter accusations by a complex political composition of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the Awami National Party (ANP), and the MQM.

All these three parties are not only coalition partners in the Sindh provincial government but are also partners in the federal government. The coalition governments have been marred by mutual distrust and an increasing observable unease, sometimes volatile, when it comes to the identification of those accused of murders and arson as well as the dispersal of government jobs.

The leaders of both PPP and the MQM, on a number of occasions went an extra mile to keep the tensions in check, but the provincial leaders and the workers of the coalition partners are far from any conciliatory mood.