Mercenaries behind Karachi killings: cops

KARACHI, November 19: The police officials in Karachi have said that the killers of four American citizens, killed in an ambush in Karachi ...

KARACHI, November 19: The police officials in Karachi have said that the killers of four American citizens, killed in an ambush in Karachi last week, could be paid assassins.

Local policemen who are working with a team from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which flew in from the United States to investigate the murders, say the investigations are leading towards tracking down the party which had hired these assassins.

A local Urdu language weekly, Takbeer, revealed in an investigative report published on Thursday that the assassins were paid over five thousand Dollars for the killings, which took place in broad daylight on a busy Karachi bridge, overlooking the Sheraton Hotel where three of the dead were staying. Karachi has seen a surge in violence over the past two months while the provincial government looks on helplessly, beset with financial and political problems.

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According to estimates, the city’s population has mushroomed to 12 million from under 200,000 fifty years back. The city’s main party, the Mohajir Qaumi Movement has now renamed itself as the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) (United National Movement) and is fighting a street war with a splinter group.

Two US embassy staffers were killed in 1995 in a similar shooting incident. Police suspect that they were victims of the turf wars between the two local parties.

A political activist from the MQM Haqiqi (the splinter group) was also arrested by authorities. Police sources say that they are not ruling out a possibility of an attack by a sectarian or ethnic organisation.