Pakistan Party Calls Strike Over 4 Deaths

KARACHI, Pakistan — The Mohajir National Movement called Tuesday for a general strike in the southern province of Sindh on Thursday to protest what it called the murder of four detained activists by police.

The ethnic party that dominates the violence-hit provincial capital of Karachi, the country’s commercial hub, issued a statement asking people to shut businesses and educational institutions Thursday.

Four detained party militants and two policemen were among 16 people killed in a surge of violence in Karachi overnight and Tuesday, officials said.

Interior Minister Nasirullah Khan Babar told a news conference that a well-known party activist, Fahim Farooqi, alias Fahim Commando, and three other militants died in a hail of fire from party gunmen hiding in a house in Karachi’s Nazimabad district.

But a statement issued by the party, known by the acronym MQM, said the four were taken out of jail and “murdered by police,” and it denied a police statement that they had been taken to the place to pinpoint an MQM hide-out.