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Seven killed in clashes in Karachi

AFP, Karachi
Seven people were killed and dozens of cars and buildings were torched during clashes between supporters and opponents of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in Karachi yesterday, police said.
Police officers found the charred bodies of five lawyers, including a woman, inside their burned-out office in the port city, while the other two were shot dead in crossfire between the warring factions, they said.
It is the first political violence since Musharraf's allies were trounced in elections in February, bringing lo power a hostile coalition government led by Ihe parly of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. New Prime Minister Yousai Kaza Gilani, who is from Bhutto's party, condemned the violence and "appealed to the citizens of Karachi to remain calm and peaceful," a statement issued by his office said.
The clashes started during a protest by lawyers from the proMusharraf Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) against the beating the previous day of former minis -ter Sher Afgan Niazi, an MQM official said.
Niazi, the ex-parliamentary affairs minister and a key Musharraf ally, was beaten with shoes and fists by angry anti-Musharraf lawyers on Tuesday night in the eastern city of Lahore.
"Our lawyers were staging a protest against an attack on Sher Afgan Niazi. Some other lawyers attacked the group, 10 were injured including a woman lawyer," MQM legislator Faisal Sabzwari said.
Clashes then spread to other parts of Karachi, a southern city of 12 million people, with police firing in the air to disperse rioters. Karachi's main bazaars and highways all shut down for hours.
"We found five completely charred bodies in a lawyers' chamber in a multi-storey building. Four are men and one is a woman," local police officer Suleman Syed told AFP updating an earlier toll.
A paramedic and a passer-by were killed earlier in the crossfire between rival groups, he said.
Top Karachi bar association official Naeem Qureshi said the five people burned to death were "all lawyers but their bodies have not been identified."
"This is the work of antidemocracy forces," he said, adding that the building contained the offices of 200 lawyers, 40 of which were torched, he said.
Dozens of rioters also burst into a barristers' room at a district courtroom in the east of the city and set it ablaze but there were no casualties, legal officials said.
Television reports said a bank had also been burned down.
Lawyers have been at the forefront of a campaign against Musharraf since he deposed Pakistan's chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, during a state ofernergencyin November.
Karachi has been hit by unrest several times in recent months, most recently after Bhutto's assassination at an election rally in December.
Meanwhile, the new government in North West Frontier Province has set up a committee of Cabinet ministers to prepare for negotiations with militants in the violence-hit Swat Valley, the daily Dawn reported Wednesday.
Dawn quoted provincial Information Minister Sardar Hussain Babak as saying that jirgas councils of tribal elders will be used to resolve the issue of militancy peacefully.
In recent years, armed insurgents have been blamed for attacks against security forces, railroads, gas wells and gas pipelines in Baluchistan, which borders Afghanistan. They have been pressing demands for the central government to increase royalties for resources, such as natural gas, extracted in the province.