KARACHI, Sept 23: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, expressing concern over the escalation of political and criminal violence in the city, has urged the authorities to take firm steps against the culprits so that citizens could live a fear-free, peaceful life.

The HRCP’s Sindh chief Zohra Yusuf, in a statement issued here after the organization’s council meeting held in connection with the International Day of Peace and Non-violence, on Saturday expressed apprehensions of further violence in view of the forthcoming elections and political polarization.

She said that the meeting particularly expressed its sense of alarm and apprehension over the recent assassination of two anti-government lawyers.

She said that these killings were accompanied by ominous threats directed towards the judiciary, lawyers and the media by some political elements and regretted that no arrests had been made in these cases so far.

Apart from the killing of lawyers, the HRCP noted the recent spiral of violence in institutes of higher learning and pointed out that an attack on a public bus near the Karachi University campus was exceptionally horrendous in which innocent citizens, in addition to four university students, lost their lives. Earlier, factional fighting had led to two murders in the premises of a medical college. Besides, there had been reports of students being tortured to death.

Ms Yusuf said that these events stand out against the backdrop that was increasingly becoming a threat to peace and social harmony in the city and that violent crime, though endemic to the city, was seen to be gaining new momentum in the politically-charged environment.

She said that the provincial and local administrations have failed to respond to the rising disorder and ordinary citizens felt insecure and defenceless. The tragic death of more than 40 people after drinking illicit and poisonous liquor was a reflection of the overall state of affairs in which the police seemed to have become an accomplice of crime syndicates.