Karachi Pakistan bloodbath goes unchecked, death toll 40

Violence gripped the city after the PPP former lawmaker Ahmed Karimdad was killed in the Lyari area Wednesday.  His killing had been preceded by five youngsters being gunned down in different parts of the city. According to police, four bullet-riddled bodies were recovered from Baldia Town. The dead had been kidnapped, tortured and later gunned down. Gunmen also opened fire at a police station and a grenade was hurled in Ranchor Line area. While a body was found in Manghopir area, two bodies were recovered from Garden area. VIOLENCE between ethnic groups and criminal gangs killed 39 people in Pakistan's financial capital of Karachi, police said, as the government again struggled for solutions to the unrest. Four bodies, which had been tortured, were found stuffed in gunny bags in another part of the city.  A former MP for the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Waja Karimdad, was among those killed in the fresh wave of violence in Karachi overnight, where hundreds of additional police and paramilitary troops were deployed last month. Spiralling unrest is a major source of concern in Pakistan's biggest city, which is used by NATO to ship the bulk of its supplies to troops fighting in Afghanistan and which accounts for around a fifth of the country's GDP. Independent economist A.B. Shahid estimated that 20 per cent of the city's business was shut down overnight with markets closed in southern neighbourhoods to protest against extortion money demanded by criminal gangs. The violence has been linked to ethnic tensions between the Mohajirs, the Urdu-speaking majority represented by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), and Pashtun migrants affiliated to the Awami National Party (ANP).