The Killers of Karachi

KARACHI -- The hitman did not bother to knock. He announced his arrival by firing a volley of shots through Salima Khan's front door. Bullets ricocheted as she cowered in the kitchen. One of the rounds struck Zainab, her bright-eyed five-year-old, in the arm. A Molotov cocktail shattered and their tiny home began to burn. The family's crime: belonging to the "wrong" ethnicity. "They want to kill all the Pashtun," says Mrs Khan, wiping away tears with her headscarf as she cradles her daughter. "I pray to God there will be peace in Karachi." The charred body of a rickshaw driver from their Orangi Town neighbourhood was dumped in the street a day after the attack - a grisly portent that the gunmen will return.