Pakistan PM calls Karachi summit

Karachi has been plagued by violence over the last 20 years

Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani is to hold an emergency meeting in the southern city of Karachi following a week of violence there.

At least 30 people have been killed since the beginning of June.

The violence is between members of Karachi's dominant political force, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and workers from a rival breakaway faction.

Both groups represent the families of Urdu speakers who migrated to Pakistan from India after partition in 1947.

Political dominance

"Prime Minister Gilani has taken serious notice of the targeted killings in Karachi and has called a high-level meeting to review the law and order situation," an official from his secretariat said.

Officials in the province of Sindh - of which Karachi is the capital - say that so far 31 people have died in targeted killings over the last nine days.

"Those killed included the activists of different political parties," said Shazia Marri, the provincial information minister.

The MQM has dominated politics in Karachi since the mid-1980s. It is the main party in Sindh and a minority party within Pakistan's governing coalition led by the Pakistan People's Party.

It is led by Altaf Hussain who lives in exile in London.

Altaf Hussain: Running Karachi from London

The party is mostly made up of and supported by Urdu-speakers known as Mohajirs, who migrated to Pakistan from India around the time of partition.

In 1992 a breakaway faction called the the MQM-Haqiqi split from the mainstream MQM, with Mr Hussain's faction retaining the bulk of Karachi's Urdu-speaking voters.

During its periods in power, the MQM has strived to keep the top leaders of the Haqiqi faction behind bars on a series of charges, correspondents say.

The BBC's Syed Shoaib Hasan in Pakistan says that most of those killed in the recent violence were members of the Haqiqi faction.

Our correspondent says that in the years between 1990 and 2000, the government - supported by Haqiqi faction - tried to destroy what it called the MQM's militant cadre. The MQM said it was a bid to destroy the party's political base.

During that time thousands of people were killed as Pakistan's security apparatus cracked down on the MQM. Karachi become a virtual battlefield, with the army, paramilitary rangers and police on one side and the MQM on the other.

The violence finally came to an end when the MQM was rehabilitated by General Pervez Musharraf when he was the country's military ruler.

Since then it has had a role in all central governments, while Haqiqi leaders have been either locked up or killed.

However, our correspondent adds, that two prominent Haqiqi leaders, Afaq Ahmed and Amir Khan, may soon be released from prison.

This could pose a direct challenge to the MQM's dominance of politics in Karachi.

The port is Pakistan's biggest city, its commercial centre and has a long history of political, ethnic and religious violence.