The killing was a sign of the escalating chaos that has gripped Pakistan's largest city.

Perween Rahman, the director of the Orangi Pilot Project, was on her way home Wednesday night when she was shot and killed by gunmen on a motorcycle, said senior police officer Javed Odho.

She was struck four times in the chest and neck and died on the way to the hospital, he said.

Rahman was an architect who left private practice early in her career to help the poor.

The Orangi Pilot Project operated in the squatter slums that make up a huge part of Karachi. The innovative project, started in the 1980s, helped residents of those poor communities build their own sewer and water systems.

The port city is a sprawling metropolis of roughly 18 million people.

It is made up of a mish-mash of essentially illegal land settlements where poor people purchased land from developers and built their homes. Few of these settlements have basic services like sewage lines or running water, let alone access to hospitals or schools.

Continue Reading...

The attack came a day after Taliban gunmen in northern Pakistan forced 20 Shiites off buses, lined them up and killed them.

The Shiite university students who were hit Friday were on their way to an anti-Israel rally that is held every year at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, said Roshan Ali Shaikh, the top administrative official in Karachi. In addition to the person killed, 11 others were wounded, he said.

It's unclear if the dead and wounded were students on the bus, or others in the area when the blast occurred.

Continue Reading...