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Pak issues 'shoot-to-kill' orders in Sindh

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Press Trust of India Islamabad
Last Updated : Jan 19 2013 | 10:08 PM IST
 Following the assassination of former Prime Minister  Benazir Bhutto yesterday, in Karachi, the capital of Sindh province, a traditional stronghold of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP), mobs looted three banks before setting them on fire.

At least 13 people were killed in violent protests in various parts of the country that erupted after Bhutto was shot by a suicide attacker after she addressed a rally in Rawalpindi yesterday.

The dead included three PPP workers who were killed during a clash with police at Dadu in Sindh today.

The paramilitary Pakistan Rangers were given "shoot-to-kill" orders to tackle protesters in Sindh that witnessed the fiercest protests.

Rangers spokesman Major Asad Ali said the rioters "did too much" last night, and had damaged government property and harassed people.

Ali said the "shoot-to-kill" orders were applicable only in Sindh, where 16,000 Rangers personnel had been deployed to deal with the violence.

Protesters, most of them PPP workers, vandalised commercial properties and shops, burnt trains and railways stations and clashed with police at many places. Much of their ire was directed against the offices and property of the ruling PML-Q party that backs President Pervez Musharraf.

Pakistanis, shocked by the assassination, poured out on the streets for angry protests throughout the night and the violent protests continued today.

(Reporting by Rezaul H Laskar)

 COMPLETE COVERAGE: TURMOIL IN PAKISTAN

 

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