E-Paper
Activist shot dead in Karachi
Gunmen shot and killed a pioneering Pakistani activist in Karachi who helped bring services like sewer and water to the city’s poorest neighbourhoods, a police official said Thursday.
Gunmen shot and killed a pioneering Pakistani activist in Karachi who helped bring services like sewer and water to the city’s poorest neighbourhoods, a police official said Thursday.
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 a police officer.
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, a sprawling metropolis of 18 million, is made up of a mish-mash of essentially illegal land settlements where poor people purchased land from developers and built their homes.
