Independence Day celebrations in Karachi left a woman dead and 94 people injured in celebratory aerial firing, rescue officials said (Geo News).
An Edhi Foundation spokesperson said the injured comprised 59 men, 17 children and 10 women. Rescue sources said the woman’s death occurred during the same wave of gunfire. The toll rose through the morning from an earlier figure of 85.
The injured were taken to three hospitals. Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre received 35 people — 28 men, four women and three children. Civil Hospital’s trauma centre treated 26, including 12 men, four women and 10 children. Abbasi Shaheed Hospital received 24, among them 19 men, one woman and four children.
That children account for 17 of the wounded is the detail that recurs every year. Bullets fired upward return to the ground at lethal speed, and the people they land on are, by definition, not participating.
Firing was reported from Lyari, Saddar, Korangi, Malir, Azizabad, North Nazimabad, Nazimabad, Gulbahar, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Orangi Town, Jamshed Quarters and Defence — effectively the whole city.
Police said they arrested 30 suspects in the eastern, western and central districts, in areas including Hyderi Market, Bilal Colony, Liaquatabad, New Karachi, Taimuria, Azizabad, Joharabad and Gulbahar, and within the jurisdictions of the Khwaja Ajmer Nagri, Samanabad, Rizvia Society and Sir Syed police stations. Various weapons were recovered. In Gulshan-e-Iqbal a security guard was arrested with a weapon, and two further suspects were held in Orangi Town and Iqbal Market.
Separately, and described by police as unrelated, a woman was killed at a hotel in Paposh Nagar’s Sarafa Bazaar when a pistol left on a table with a round in the chamber discharged as it was handled. She was taken to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital and died there. Police arrested a man identified as Imran, her cousin, and recovered a 9mm pistol.
Authorities issue the same warning every year, and the same figures follow. In 2025, three people were killed and at least 75 injured in Independence Day aerial firing in Karachi. In 2024, about 95 were injured.
