Two leading political party workers clash in Karachi over rally venue dispute
Karachi, May 8 : Supporters of two Pakistani political parties clashed with each other in this city over a dispute revolving around the location of a rally.
The clashes took place between Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) in parts of Gulshan-e-Iqbal area of Karachi yesterday, a senior police official said, adding that both parties wanted to hold a political gathering at the Hakeem Saeed ground here.
The supporters of PPP and PTI are vying to end the dominance of the Mutthaida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Karachi’s single largest party.
Activists hurled stones at each other and also set some vehicles on fire before police controlled the situation, Gulshan Superintendent of Police Ghulam Murtaza Bhutto said.
“They also destroyed camp offices of each other,” he added.
Some “party workers sustained injuries in stone pelting,” Jamal Siddiqui, spokesperson of the Karachi wing of PTI, a party led by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan said.
The parties were at loggerheads over the venue for a planned rally on May 12. “Both parties have applied for permission to hold their rallies at the same venue,” Bhutto said.
Shopping malls, petrol pumps and markets remained closed in the area, he said.
The MQM emerged as a largely ethnic party in the 1980s and has political dominance in the southern Sindh province’s urban areas – notably in Karachi, Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas and Sukkur where a large number of Urdu-speaking people reside.
