Pervez Musharraf should apologise to the nation for what happened in Karachi,” says a fragile, 81-year-old Yusufali, angrily referring to a rash of ethnic violence which left 45 people dead and more than 150 others injured over the weekend. “Nobody is buying his (President Musharraf’s) rhetoric of shedding ‘tears of blood’. If he were so overcome with grief, he should have called off the celebratory pro-government rally held in Islamabad held in his honour, and instead flown to Karachi and taken things in hand.” Yusufali’s sentiments seem to be echoed by many ordinary Pakistanis.

“The inaction of law enforcement authorities in the face of extensive violence can either be explained as government incompetence or complicity,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, South Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch. “In either case, this is a dark day for civil and political liberties in Pakistan.”

“There seemed to be no government, no administration and no social existence. Karachi just appeared to be a piece of land where the rule of the jungle was operative,” summed up Syed Talat Hussain, news director of Aaj TV, a private news channel. “This is just a taste of what is yet to come. It has only started,” he warned.

Hussain was inclined to lay blame at the door of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the political party that rules Sindh province of which Karachi is capital. “With the MQM as the only party to hold its meeting, it appears that the Karachi incidents have created a situation of the MQM versus all opposition parties. A fascist party like that can be lethal on its own, but when it is backed by the establishment in Islamabad, it is double jeopardy,” he said.

The latest outbreak of violence was not entirely unexpected. The ethnic tinderbox that is Karachi went up in flames as Pakistan’s suspended chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, arrived in the city to address a lawyer’s convention at the Sindh High Court. Observers sensed trouble when the MQM, an ally of President Musharraf since 2002, decided to hold a rally in the city on the same day. Neither side would back down and bloodshed followed.

In Karachi, Chaudhry could not move out of the airport as all roads leading to the Sindh High Court had been blocked the previous night. Refusing the government’s offer to fly him to the court premises via helicopter, he took a plane back to Islamabad, leaving carnage and mayhem behind as his supporters and those of Musharraf fought pitched battles on the streets. Musharraf publicly blamed Chaudhry and the opposition parties for organising meetings in Karachi while the MQM was holding a rally there. The MQM has always wanted to be the sole power broker in Karachi and has always been ready to resort to violence to keep things that way. “Peace in Karachi means a smaller vote bank for the MQM,” said an observer.

But the MQM may not have things entirely its way even if backed by the government. It has two battles on hand — one against the Pashtun ANP party and the other against the PPP which is well-entrenched in the rural areas. “Once the Pashtun join forces with their tribal religious parties and groups in the Frontier and the Balochistan provinces, there will be no withdrawing. Even MQM will not know what hit them as only the former have the zeal to produce suicide bombers,” said one analyst. — IPS