Bloody showdown in Karachi

KARACHI, Saturday (AFP) - Fierce gun battles between rival Pakistani political activists killed 27 people today in the worst violence since President Pervez Musharraf suspended the country's top judge two months ago. Most of the victims were opposition supporters heading for a rally in the southern city of Karachi by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who was trapped at the airport throughout the day by roadblocks set up by Musharraf supporters.

Black smoke billowed over the volatile commercial hub as mobs armed with assault rifles and shotguns fought pitched battles in the streets, opened fire on a private television studio and torched dozens of buses and cars. Military ruler Musharraf, who was due to address his own rally in Islamabad in the evening, ruled out declaring a state of emergency but deployed extra paramilitary troops in armoured cars in the volatile southern city.

Musharraf, a key US ally, dismissed Chaudhry on March 9 over allegations that he had abused his power, turning the judge into a symbol of defiance and unleashing the most serious crisis of the president's eight-year rule. Opponents say army chief Musharraf acted unconstitutionally in a bid to neuter the judiciary and make it easier to be re-elected as president by the current parliament before his five-year term runs out in November.

“There are 27 people dead in the violence and more than 90 are injured. The numbers could go up,” a senior Pakistani security official told AFP on condition of anonymity. “The majority of those killed are workers of opposition parties, mainly the Pakistan People's Party” of exiled former premier Benazir Bhutto, he said.

Other officials said a policeman and a paramedic were among the victims. New York-based Human Rights Watch said Musharraf's government and its allies had apparently “deliberately sought to foment violence in Karachi,”adding that police stood by as “silent spectators”. The government, however, blamed Chaudhry for the violence.

“We asked the chief justice not to come but he chose to and the violence started when he arrived. Now I have asked his lawyers to go back because they achieved what they wanted,” Sindh Province Governor Ishratul Ibad said. An AFP photographer at the scene of the biggest clash said workers from the pro-Musharraf Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) exchanged gunfire for an hour with activists from Bhutto's Party.

Earlier, gunmen on motorbikes shot dead two activists from the party of former premier Nawaz Sharif as they put up posters welcoming Chaudhry. Separately, a member of an opposition Islamic party was fatally shot. Private Aaj television, which has come under pressure from the government for its allegedly pro-chief justice stance, showed footage of gunmen firing at its office in Karachi and of its correspondents diving for cover.

Justice Chaudhry remained stranded at Karachi airport after flying in on Saturday morning because government supporters had used trucks with deflated tyres to shut down all main roads, including those leading to the airport. It was unclear if he was going to go ahead with his delayed plans to address lawyers and other supporters in front of Sindh High Court.

The MQM -- historically an ethnic party for people who migrated from India after partition in 1947 and which has been implicated in violence here during the 1990s -- held a large counter-demonstration in Karachi to rival Chaudhry's. Meanwhile, after two months of protests in support of the judge, Musharraf is finally set to make his own show of strength with a rally late Saturday in the capital, Islamabad.

Several thousand government supporters, many bussed in from around the country, had gathered outside parliament, far fewer than the 400,000 that the government had predicted. Musharraf was quoted as saying by the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan that there was “absolutely no requirement and absolutely no environment” for declaring a state of emergency after rumours swept the country.