Karachi (ANTARA News/AKI/DAWN) - At least eight people were killed during the ongoing ethnic and political violence in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi in the past 12 hours, DawnNews reported.
A total of 75 suspects were had been arrested by law enforcement agencies carrying out search operations in the city, according to police.
Earlier on Monday, fear gripped parts of Gulshan-i-Iqbal and Gulistan-i-Jauhar districts and other areas after armed attacks and an exchange of fire killed at least four people and left at least five wounded, police and witnesses said.
The firing incidents that erupted about an hour before sunset continued into Monday night, prompting the police and the Rangers only to cordon off the affected areas and launch a snap checking of motorists.
The violence claimed 800 lives in seven months of 2011, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and has been the deadliest since 1995, when more than 900 people were killed.
Three hundred people were killed in July alone, according to the rights body.
Many link the killings to rising tensions between the Mohajirs, the Urdu-speaking majority represented politically by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), and Pashtun migrants affiliated to the Awami National Party (ANP).
Authorities appear powerless to stop the bloodshed and most of the victims are innocent civilans from poor neighbourhoods, according to human rights activists.
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