Word: karachi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Karachi, a port city of 14 million on the Pakistani coast, where the Pab mountain range and the Sindh Desert gather into a brick-and dust-hued urban sprawl before tumbling into the Arabian Sea, is the battlefield in which an assassin like M.R. thrives. In Karachi you have ethnic feuds: gangs of Indian migrants versus the Pathans, Baluchis and Sindhis; you have extremists from rival Sunni and Shi'ite sects battling each other (lately, radical Sunnis are gunning down Shi'ite doctors and lawyers at random); and, of course, there are the radical Islamic groups that shelter al-Qaeda...
...sordid examples: in certain colleges, teachers demand payoffs from students wanting to pass exams; some cops earn extra money by selling their bullets; and gangs, operating under the auspices of crooked bureaucrats, police and army-ranger elements, siphon off water before it reaches the taps of most Karachi apartment buildings and sell it in the city from tanker trucks, according to municipal workers. An industrialist who says he refused to bribe health inspectors saw his tiremaking plant shut down when they invoked a little-observed 19th century British law requiring factory walls to be whitewashed. On the Karachi Stock Exchange...
...courts, it is common for a defense lawyer to pay off witnesses, the judge and even the prosecutor to obtain a favorable verdict for his client. In the end, some would-be litigants find it is cheaper, and more effective, simply to hire a hit man. "Karachi today," says Tariq Amin, a fashion stylist and prominent social commentator, "is like Chicago in the days of Al Capone mixed in with the Middle Ages...
...other words, it's a dangerous mess. And with terrorism breeding in enclaves across the city, Karachi has the potential to spread its menace not only throughout Pakistan but far beyond its frontiers. Several of the top al-Qaeda agents captured by Pakistani officials and the FBI had holed up in Karachi, and many?maybe even Osama bin Laden himself?may still be lurking there, officials...
...Karachi become a megalopolis of mayhem? In 1947, when Britain spilt the Raj into India and Pakistan, modern Karachi, more than any other city, was a by-product of this upheaval. Before partition, its inhabitants included Hindus, Parsis, Muslim traders, Goans, and Sheedis, descendants of African slaves shipped over in chains during the 18th century. An illustration of Karachi's surviving cultural diversity: at a one-room shrine that has more to do with African tribalism than Islam, women flock to see Mushkan, a male Sheedi medium in white, womanly robes. When he goes into a trance, he says...