KARACHI, April 9: Five people burnt beyond recognition were among seven persons who lost their lives here on Wednesday after a spat between two groups of lawyers at the City Courts turned deadly.

By Wednesday night well over 50 vehicles had been set alight by people on motorbikes.

The five people who were burnt beyond recognition were trapped for four hours inside Tahir Plaza, a building near the City Courts housing lawyers’ offices. “We had to break the lock to enter the room and during search we found the charred bodies.”

Fives bodies were recovered from the sixth floor, where Aftab Abbasi, an advocate, had an office.

The trouble started when a group of lawyers, backed by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, held a demonstration at the courts to protest the manhandling of Dr Sher Afghan Niazi.

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement alleged that its lawyers were attacked by members of the Karachi Bar Association.

The Karachi Bar rebutted the claim, saying they had been attacked by their rivals who barged into the KBA office.

As soon as the clash broke out, hundreds of people converged on the city courts.

At some places police fired into the air to scare away the “miscreants”, but no one moved.

KBA president Mehmoodul Hasan told Dawn that at the time of arson a number of his clients were present in Mr Abbasi’s office along with the latter.

A rescue worker requesting not to be named said “it seems that the arsonists intentionally locked the grill at the sixth floor of the building while fleeing after torching the offices so that people trapped inside would burn alive”.

Police surgeon Dr Bashir Shaikh told Dawn that all the five bodies had 100 per cent burns and were unidentifiable.

“Four victims seem to be men while the fifth appears to be a boy or a woman,” Dr Shaikh said.

A number of people visited the Civil Hospital mortuary to identify the charred bodies, but failed to do so as they were charred beyond recognition.

The CHK’s mortuary was filled with the smell of charred bodies as if brunt out logs had been placed in the morgue.

Among other fatalities of the day was a driver working for a private hospital who suffered a bullet wound when he was fired upon by unknown persons at Burns Road.

Similarly, a minibus driver was brought dead at Civil Hospital, officials said.

Several hours after the incident at city courts, some youths were seen carrying petrol in plastic bottles while riding motorcycles on Burns Road.

Buses, minibuses and cars were also set on fire at Nagan Chowrangi, Liaquatabad, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Malir and Landhi.

The stretch of road between Jauhar Mor and Jauhar Chowrangi, in Gulistan-i-Jauhar, saw intense firing by armed youths. They torched three minibuses, three cars and several rickshaws.

In Malir Court, unknown people barged into the court premises and set fire to a room used by the Bar.

They also torched three motorcycles parked in the premises and resorted to heavy firing.

An office bearer of the Karachi Bar said that fortunately lawyers were not present at the time of the arson as they had dashed to the City courts. “Otherwise the attackers would have attacked lawyers.”

NAEEM QURESHI: An apartment belonging to the General Secretary of Karachi Bar Association in Gulistan-i-Jauhar was set on fire by some unknown persons on Wednesday evening.

Javed Meher, a senior police official, told Dawn four, or probably five, youths came to the apartment of Mr Qureshi in Qasim Complex, Block 18.

They locked the students of a private university who were living there and sprinkled the drawing room with the fuel they had brought with them.