World Notes PAKISTAN

The murder spree seemed well planned. At 7:30 p.m. last Friday, bands of local Sindhis sped through the Pakistani city of Hyderabad and opened fire on crowded street markets, movie houses and bus stops. They even attacked a wedding party. The massacre claimed the lives of at least 160 Mohajirs, a people who immigrated to Pakistan after India was partitioned in 1947. Then came the revenge. In Karachi, 100 miles away, gangs of Mohajirs sprayed Sindhi neighborhoods with gunfire, killing about 50 people.

Pakistani troops quickly quelled the violence after moving into both cities, but the long-standing tensions between the groups remained high. The latest troubles began in July, when Sindhi terrorists demanding autonomy for the Sind province staged an unsuccessful assassination attempt against the Mohajir mayor of Hyderabad.