Pakistan steps up security as Karachi toll hits 58

Pakistan has deployed hundreds of extra paramilitary troops in its economic capital Karachi, struggling to end violence that has killed 58 people in five days, officials said Wednesday. Authorities are battling to put a halt to gunfights raging across the key port city -- used by NATO to ship supplies to Afghanistan -- where political, ethnic and criminal rivalries left more than 200 people dead last month. The provincial government is offering 10 million rupees ($115,000) for citizens who provide information leading to the arrests of those responsible for the violence, at its worst since 1995. "Hundreds of paramilitary soldiers and policemen deployed in the city's troubled western neighbourhoods last night," local government official Sharfuddin Memon told AFP. "House-to-house searches are going on and some suspects have been detained." The death toll on Wednesday reached 58, after at least 35 people were killed in the space of 24 hours and provincial health official Hamid Parhiar said at least four bullet-riddled bodies were brought to hospital. Wajid Durrani, police chief of the southern Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital, said police had made 24 arrests and some officials said calm had been restored. Much of the fighting has been blamed on supporters of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) political party representing the Urdu-speaking majority, and the rival Awami National Party (ANP), which represents ethnic Pashtun migrants. MQM chief Altaf Hussain, who lives in exile in London, warned people overnight to stockpile food for a month as the law and order situation worsens. "We are running out of patience. For how long will we collect the bodies of innocent people?" said Hussain in a written statement to party workers before a party meeting, due to be conducted by telephone on Wednesday. Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, with a population of 17 million, suffered deadly communal violence throughout the 1980s and 1990s, as well as in recent years. The Arabian Sea port city is used by NATO to ship the bulk of supplies to troops fighting in Afghanistan. Government officials and coalition party members have distributed stickers, pamphlets and placards pleading for peace, but to little effect. The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan recently described Karachi as a city in the grip of political, ethnic and sectarian "polarisation". It said 490 people were killed in targeted killings in Karachi in the first half of the year, compared with 748 in the whole of 2010.