45 people dead, 137 wounded - Karachi shuts down to protest tragedy. Hunting down Shias: Society’s deafening silence
KARACHI: A complete shutdown was being observed in Karachi as the city mourned on Monday the bombing that occurred a day earlier in the city’s Abbas Town, killing at least 45 people and wounding 137 others, DawnNews reported. At least 33 of the 45 bodies were handed over to their relatives after identification, after which the funeral prayers and burial process of the blast victims went underway on Monday. Relatives of the victims were still identifying the remaining bodies kept at the morgue. Some protestors staged demonstrations at the city’s Numaish Chowrangi and burnt tyres blocking roads in the area. Traffic was thin as educational institutions, businesses and markets announced closure after the local government declared Monday a day of mourning for those killed in Sunday’s bombing.
Hunting down Shias: Society’s deafening silence
The Jafria Alliance had also called for a strike for today which was backed by the Majlis-i-Wahdat-i-Muslimeen and other Shia organisations. Local transport and traders’ associations said they would not be operating on Monday. “There will be no public transport on the roads today,” said Karachi Transporters Ittehad chief Irshad Bokhari. All-Karachi Tajir Ittehad (AKTI) President Atiq Mir also said shopping centres and malls as well as other business activity would remain suspended. Most petrol pumps and filling stations were shut across the city. Although the Karachi Stock Exchange was open for operations today, there were fewer dealers and trading volumes were low, AFP quoted a local stock broker as saying.
The Sindh Assembly session scheduled for March 4 (today) was also postponed for two days in the wake of the blast. Similarly a shutdown was also observed to mourn the Karachi incident, in Hyderabad city which left most social and business activities suspended on Monday. All main trade centres and bazaars in the city remained closed while public transport was very thin. The attendance in the government and private offices was recorded low due to panic and fear. Several main roads wore deserted look as traffic remained off the streets. Heavy contingents of police carried out patrolling across the city to avoid any untoward incident.
The government and private schools also remained closed as Sindh government and private school managements had already announced the closure over tragic bomb blast killings. Angry mobs set tyres on fire in some areas of the city in protest against the blast incident. The bomb exploded in Karachi on Sunday as worshippers were returning from prayers in the Shia-dominated neighbourhood of Abbas Town, ripping through two apartment blocks and trapping people beneath piles of rubble. Those who survived but whose homes were damaged or destroyed are being housed temporarily in schools, officials said.
Hauled off buses, targeted in their clinics, on boulevards, in alleys, in shops, in offices, in processions and pilgrimages, is there any place left safe for Shias in Pakistan? At Ashura, they were chastised for taking out Moharram processions and giving terrorists an open field in which to attack. Till yesterday, they might have thought that the inner sanctum of their homes would provide them protection against the growing madness swirling around them. But now the killing fields are their own homes. Yesterday’s blast in Abbas Town not only blew out shop windows and decimated shopkeepers, hawkers and customers, it also pulverised women and children enjoying the weekend evening breeze on their balconies. Mothers preparing dinner, kids finishing homework and packing school bags, neighbours chit chatting in corridors, TV sets blaring… a scene of tranquillity and domesticity turned into an inferno in seconds.
