, Washington Post, 24 January 2011

EXCERPT: "Last semester ended ominously here on the campus of one of Pakistan's largest universities, with a flurry of clashes involving armed student organizations, a professors' strike against violence, canceled exams and a lunchtime bombing. The University of Karachi began a new session last week - two weeks late - under the watch of army rangers deployed as peacekeepers. Shaken professors and students spoke of hope for a fresh start but also betrayed fear, referring to instigators only as 'activists,' instead of what they are - wings of national political parties that employ brutality and coercion to gain clout on campus. In that sense, professors here say, the situation is a worrisome, if far less lethal, microcosm of the ethnic and sectarian feuds splitting this economic hub of 18 million. In Karachi, political mobsters are engaged in an increasingly deadly battle for land and the loyalty of a growing middle-class voting bloc, and officials seem helpless or unwilling to stop it. Rather than break free of those conflicts, the next generation seems to have inherited them."

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Related articles:
25 terror suspects held in Karachi in January: Malik, SAMAA News, 25 January 2011
Sindh to decide on Karachi op: PM, The Nation, 25 January 2011
Martial law should be imposed in Punjab: Altaf, The News, 25 January 2011

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