Islamabad, June 15 (IANS) Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Tuesday some foreign elements were conspiring to destabilise Pakistan and pointed to the target killings in Karachi as evidence of this.
Responding to a point of order in the Senate, he said some internal forces were also assisting these foreign elements in their designs.
Rehman said action would be taken wherever government’s writ was challenged and the trouble makers would be put down with an iron hand.
He said that Shias and Sunnis were not involved in the riots but ‘there is a third element which is spending money in Pakistan to create a wave of sectarianism. We would expose such elements,’ Online news agency reported.
A fresh wave of target killings in Karachi has claimed four lives and injured three.
According to police sources, assistant jailor Ishaq Mio was shot by armed men late Monday and later succumbed to his injuries, Geo news reported Tuesday.
Three people were injured till Tuesday morning, the report said.
The target killings started when three people were killed in Musa Colony, near the Nazimabad College for Men.
Last month, three days of political-ethnic killings claimed 37 lives, while at least eight vehicles were set ablaze in various parts of Karachi.
The violence targeted activists of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the Awami National Party (ANP), the Muhajir Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI).
Ironically, the MQM is a junior partner in the Sindh and federal coalition governments, both of which are headed by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). The ANP is also part of the federal coalition.
Despite this, the MQM and the ANP have constantly been at loggerheads as they push the interests of their respective communities – the Mohajirs who migrated from India when the sub-continent was partitioned and the Pushtoon-origin residents of Karachi.
