Hundreds of paramilitary troops were last night authorised to open fire on the streets of the largest city in Pakistan after a weekend of bloody violence left more than 40 dead and hundreds wounded.

Karachi was paralysed by a second day of civil strife as President Musharraf’s political troubles deepened sharply.

The dead included a policeman who was set upon and tortured before being shot at close range. Police used teargas to disperse protesters as vehicles and shops were set on fire.

About 500 paramilitary troops joined the 15,000 police and security forces already on the streets and the Army was poised on the sidelines.

The violence has been the worst in Pakistan for years and underlined how protests against Mr Musharraf’s suspension of the country’s top judge have mushroomed, raising the spectre of bloody ethnic feuding of the kind that plagued Karachi in the 1980s and 1990s.

The opposition, which blamed the Government for orchestrating the weekend bloodshed, has called for a nationwide strike today.

The violence was sparked when Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the suspended chief justice, flew into the city to address a rally organised by his supporters campaigning for independence of the judiciary.

Widespread riots broke out as the Muttehida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a staunch ally of Mr Musharraf, which also controls the city government, prevented Justice Chaudhry leaving the airport and held a counter-rally in the central city district. The judge, who has become a focal point for opponents of Mr Musharraf, was forced to scrap plans to address the rally and had to fly back to Islamabad. His suspension on the allegation of misconduct had outraged the lawyers, who accused the President of trying to curb judicial independence.

Witnesses said that mobs armed with automatic rifles fought pitched battles on the streets as the city plunged into chaos. Corpses lay in pools of blood on the roads. Most of the dead were opposition activists.Reports said that gunmen belonging to the MQM fired on the opposition supporters who tried to reach the airport to receive the judge, while the police and paramilitary troops stood by.

The MQM denied any involvement. Altaf Hussain, its leader, said that the organisation had been victimised by opposition supporters. Mr Hussain founded the MQM in 1984 to assist Muslim refugees from India. He is now a British citizen living in London, having come to the country in 1992 for a kidney operation.

Aaj television, a private broadcaster that has come under pressure from the Government for its alleged support for the Chief Justice, showed footage of gunmen firing at its office in Karachi and of its correspondents diving for cover.

Ali Dayan Hasan, a spokesman for Human Rights Watch, based in New York, said: “The sequence of events . . . indicated that the Government has deliberately sought to foment violence.”

Mr Musharraf, addressing a large rally of his supporters in Islamabad on Saturday, blamed Justice Chaudhry and his supporters for the violence and vowed to crush his opposition.

From a heavily guarded bullet-proof rostrum, he said: “Stop agitation if you are patriots, if you have love for the people and if you have the same pain for the deaths of people in Karachi.”

General Musharraf, who is also the Chief of Army Staff, has announced his intention to seek another term, but he has not indicated his plan to give up his military uniform, as required by the Constitution.

Karachi clashes

August 1983 10 killed and 17 wounded in anti-government protests led by the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy

April 1985 500 troops and 200 police called in to deal with riots that left 15 dead and 50 wounded. Teargas used to disperse groups angered by a traffic fatality

December 1985 Thousands of protesters take to the streets over the police’s failure to solve a spate of mass murders

August 1986 26 die as police shoot protesters in a five-day battle set off by the arrest of members of the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy

December 1986 175 die and 480 wounded in the worst rioting since independence. Police ordered to shoot on sight

May 2007 The worst violence since the 1980s

Sources: news agencies

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