12 May Karachi riots
[2][4] The unrest began as the recently suspended chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry arrived at the Jinnah International Airport on 12 May 2007.
[1] The MQM officially denied starting the chaos and blamed it on the PPP, ANP, PMAP, Punjabi Pakhtun Ittehad (PPI), and Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PML-N) activists.
[10][11] Issues pertaining to the privatisation of the state-owned steel mills upset Shaukat Aziz, who served as the prime minister under the Musharraf administration.
The government, reluctantly, agreed to issue special passes for reporters and lawyers to attend the presidential reference filed against the chief justice.
"Nations and states which are based on dictatorship instead of the supremacy of the constitution, the rule of law and protection of basic rights get destroyed."
When Chaudhry did arrive at the Lahore High Court, his motorcade was swamped by supporters showering his vehicle with rose petals and chanting "Go Musharraf, Go!
Chaudhry also accused the government of violating the basic human rights of its citizens and warned that the countries and nations that don't learn from past mistakes were bound to be destroyed.
The provincial government called a meeting of the senior officials and instructed them to not let the chief justice leave the airport at any cost.
[24] On 10 May 2007, Pakistan International Human Rights Organisation filed a petition with the Sindh High Court pointing out reports in the press about Sindh home secretary Ghulam M. Muhtaram Naqvi's letter to the chief justice that requested him to postpone his visit because of intelligence reports suggesting threat of a terrorist attack.
[23] Karachi Police informed it had arrested 150 people under the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance on apprehensions they could "create problems" on the judge's arrival.
[23] Fearing a showdown between rival political parties, the transporters in the city decided to keep their buses and vans off the road.
[28] Parts of Shahrah-e-Quaideen were blocked[28] whereas the main arterial road Shahrah-e-Faisal, which was to be used by procession of the chief justice, was completely made inaccessible.
With the violence continuing right at their doorstep, Aaj TV reporters began telecasting live footage of the mayhem.
[33] The Aaj TV footage showed armed men brandishing weapons that they fired indiscriminately at rivals in an adjacent neighbourhood.
[33] In an editorial for the Daily Times, freelance journalist Urooj Zia wrote an eyewitness account of the carnage outside the Business Recorder House.
She mentioned how people were being stopped at gunpoint on the street by political activists and asked for identification while the police stood by idly.
[34][36] More than 800 political workers were arrested, majority of whom were members of labor and student organizations that had been planning to greet Chaudhry on his arrival.
Knowing that roads leading up to the airport were blocked and that his leaving may further precipitate bloodshed, Chaudhry's advisers asked him to stay put.
Amidst the chaos, the government agreed to send a helicopter to transport him out of the airport but Chaudhry refused, indicating that he wished to travel by ground.
[39] According to Aitzaz Ahsan, a prominent figurehead in Chaudhry's cadre, the chief justice had waited all day for permission to go to the Sindh High Court but was rather mistreated and asked to leave.
"[41] According to documents obtained by the BBC after the event, government security measures on the day of the planned demonstrations included the instruction that "no police personnel should carry any kind of weapon during the law and order duty with the rally".
[36] Most of the city remained calm the day following the riots as security forces in armored personnel carriers and pickup trucks with mounted machine guns patrolled mostly peaceful and deserted streets.
[44] An editorial in the Daily Times said, "the possibility of any compromise to correct [Musharraf's] original mistake [of removing the chief justice] has vanished now ... the ante has been upped by the government.
It is the largest strike in Pakistan since Musharraf assumed his presidency in 1999, with much of the unrest stemming from news reports that government troops were in Karachi.
[37] At a press conference on 14 May 2007, Sindh chief minister Dr. Arbab Ghulam Rahim assured that the situation in Karachi was under control and that there had been no serious incidents of violence in the days following the initial 12 May riots, despite fears to the contrary.
[52] On 3 June 2007, the government announced that it would impose a ban on any televised live talk show that discusses the issue of the chief justice's suspension.
It threatened to take punitive action against broadcasters that displayed an anti-state or anti-national stance and cast "aspersions on the integrity of the armed forces".
[56] Amongst the petitioners was the civil rights activist Syed Mohammad Iqbal Kazmi who had recently filed a petition in the Sindh High Court on 12 May violence.
He told of his harrowing ordeal where he was quizzed about his association with Imran Khan's PTI and the reasons as to why he named MQM founder and chief Altaf Hussain in his petition.
The bench included justices Sarmad Jalal Osmany, Anwar Zaheer Jamali, Mushir Alam, Azizullah M. Memon, Khilji Arif Hussain, Maqbool Baqar, and Ali Sain Dino Metlo, who were authorised to probe into the several issues that resulted in the 12 May bloodshed.
