Vulnerability to homicide in Karachi: Political activity as a risk factor

Document Type

Article

Department

Emergency Medicine

Abstract

Background: Previous studies analysing Karachi ambulance data from 1993 to 1995 identified neighbourhoods in Karachi disproportionately affected by homicide. As a step toward developing intervention programmes to curb violence, we conducted a study to identify risk factors for becoming a homicide victim in a high violence area of Karachi.
Methods: We interviewed families of 35 cases, individuals intentionally killed through acts of violence between January 1994 and January 1997, and 85 community-based controls frequency matched by sex, from Orangi, a high violence area of Karachi.
Results: Most of our cases and controls were male (97% and 92%, respectively) and had similar socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. All the victims were killed by firearms; 4 (11%) had been tortured prior to death. Most of the victims were killed in the streets (n = 25, 71%). Of these, 7 (36%) had been killed by law-enforcement officers, while 6 (24%) died from indiscriminate firing. People who were killed were 34 times more likely to have attended all political processions (29% versus 1%, odds ratio [OR] = 34; 95% CI: 4-749, P < 0.001), 19 times more likely to have attended political meetings (31% versus 2%, OR = 19; 95% CI: 4-136, P < 0.001), and 17 times more likely to have held an important position in a political party (29% versus 2%, OR = 17; 95% CI: 3-120, P < 0.001) than controls.
Conclusions: Homicide in Orangi was political. Efforts to improve trust between ethnic groups and to build legitimacy for non-violent forms of conflict resolution are important steps to limit future violence.

Comments

This work was published before the author joined Aga Khan University.

Publication (Name of Journal)

International Journal of Epidemiology

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