Seven killed as protest sparks unrest

http://news.smh.com.au/seven-killed-as-protest-sparks-unrest/20080410-252d.html

Rival groups of lawyers clashed in Pakistan's biggest city, triggering a spasm of violence that left seven people dead, five of them in a blazing building.

Thursday's violence was the most serious yet to buffet the new Pakistani government as it prepares to assail the powers of President Pervez Musharraf and the second involving lawyers pushing for his removal from office.

Trouble broke out when lawyers - some supportive of the new government and others critical - clashed near the main courts complex in Karachi. Soon after, armed men in civilian clothes began shooting and torching cars in several districts, witnesses said.

An office block near the courts was set ablaze and police officer Syed Sulaiman said five charred bodies were found on the sixth floor. Their identity was unclear.

The violence began when lawyers affiliated with the Mutahida Quami Movement (MQM), a political party that was part of the previous government, held a protest on Thursday afternoon near the Karachi courts against an assault the previous day on a former cabinet minister.

Police and witnesses said other lawyers leaving a bar association meeting got involved in a scuffle with the protesters. About eight people were injured in the scuffles.

On Thursday, leaders of the two parties blamed unidentified elements of trying to sabotage their new understanding - code in Pakistan's conspiracy ridden politics for intelligence agencies aligned with the military.

But there was bitter sniping between the MQM and the party of Nawaz Sharif, the No.2 player in the coalition.

Sharif has joined Pakistan's powerful lawyers movement in pushing hard for the ouster of Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup by deposing Sharif's second government and sending him into long exile.

The government plans to strip Musharraf of his power to dismiss the prime minister and review his US-backed policies against Islamic extremists. It also has vowed to restore Supreme Court judges purged by Musharraf last year to halt a legal challenge to his continuing in office.

However, it might need the votes of wavering former Musharraf supporters to push through its agenda.

This week's incidents have already damaged the lawyers movement, which has threatened mass street protests if the government does not restore the ousted judges soon.