Islamabad, Pakistan – Opposition to Pakistan’s U.S.-allied president intensified Monday after weekend violence killed 41 in the nation’s business capital, with a strike closing shops across the country and lawmakers denouncing Gen. Pervez Musharraf as “killer Musharraf.”
The unrest dramatically raised the stakes for Musharraf, whose attempts to extend his nearly eight-year rule are being threatened by his suspension two months ago of the independent-minded Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry.
Opposition parties and ordinary citizens blamed Musharraf and his political allies for the bloodshed in Karachi on Saturday, when rival political groups staging rallies over a visit by the judge clashed in the streets. Security forces failed to intervene.
Gunmen, meanwhile, killed a senior administrator for the Supreme Court, Syed Hamid Raza, at his home in Islamabad before dawn Monday.
Police said they believed robbers were responsible.
The opposition strike call was observed in most major cities, including Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta, but particularly Karachi. The city of 15 million people was paralyzed, with shops closed and traffic thin, partly because officials banned public gatherings and authorized security forces to shoot rioters on sight.
In Lahore, about 8,000 people, including lawyers, opposition party members and human- rights activists, burned two effigies of Musharraf. They also chanted “Death to Altaf Hussain,” referring to a leader of the pro-government Mutahida Qaumi Movement, heavily implicated in the Karachi violence.
In the National Assembly, more than 100 opposition lawmakers protested the violence by shouting “Killer, killer general, killer!” and “Killer, killer Musharraf, killer!”
The bloodshed marked a sudden escalation in a crisis that began March 9 when Musharraf suspended Chaudhry for alleged abuse of office – a move critics suspect was designed to head off legal challenges to the general’s plan to ask lawmakers for another five-year term this fall.
