KARACHI: Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest and most diverse city, was once home to a famous nightclub scene where alcohol flowed freely and luminaries from the world of jazz played to packed crowds eager for a taste of Western culture.

Today, a new generation is seeking to revive the partying traditions of their parents and grandparents — albeit behind closed doors.

At a luxury hotel in the metropolis of 20 million — better known for bitter political acrimony, gang violence and bloody turf wars — it is after midnight and the private party has just started.

In a room decorated with chandeliers, several hundred guests are letting their hair down. The music is loud and the bar is busy.

A young female DJ, tanned and tattooed, is in control of the beats. Men dressed in suits and ties chain smoke as they listen to the electro-funk of Daft Punk, as women in slinky dresses strut across the dance floor.

The partygoers are from a generation that tasted the freedom of a foreign university and overseas travel before returning home to Pakistan.

The party was not advertised — and from the street you would never know it was happening — to avoid the attention of suicide bombers and extremist clerics.

Before the creeping religious radicalisation from the late 1970s that fundamentally altered the country, Pakistan’s nightlife was legendary.

The golden-era began in the 1950s and rolled on until prohibition in 1977, which was followed by a slew of extremist policies that drastically altered society.

Alcohol flowed freely in downtown bars and American jazz musicians Dizzie Gillespie and Duke Ellington played to huge crowds.

Clubs such as Playboy, Excelsior, Oasis, Samar, Club 007 all competed to be the place to be seen by Karachi’s hip young crowd.

“We used to have a good nightlife with bands, drinks and dancing but it’s gone,” recalls Imtiaz Moghal, the manager of the Metropole Hotel, once one of Karachi’s hottest nightspots, but which now lies semi-derelict as it awaits renovation.

“It is a haunted house,” he said as he wandered through the crumbling remnants of the once-grand hotel.

Gesturing at the carpark, he said: “That used to be a club and a disco. It hurts to think about it now.”

In Karachi’s heyday, politicians, young people, belly dancers, foreign diplomats, the cabin crew of foreign airlines and musicians from touring Southeast Asia orchestras were all swept up together in the melee of the city’s nightlife.

“The order of music was that you would warm up and then play some more popular songs, and (then) you played the louder music… towards the end of the evening you wind down because people had romantic intentions,” recalls former bandmember Leon Menezes.

From 1970 to 1975, sporting  long hair and oversized sunglasses, Menezes’ band The In Crowd was one of Karachi’s most popular.

The group played at the 1972 inauguration of president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, father of Pakistan’s first female prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

The elder Bhutto was a regular at many of Karachi’s nightspots and was known to enjoy his whisky.

Menezes, now a teacher at a Karachi business school, recalled the day of the inauguration as an “incredible piece of history”.

“In the afternoon we were walking into his house to set up and there was Mr Bhutto… I was carrying an amplifier and a guitar in one hand. And I said, ‘Good afternoon, sir’. And he said, ‘Good afternoon’. I said, ‘Sir, will there be dancing?’ He said, ‘I don’t know but (if there is) please don’t hide yourself.’”

Five years later, Bhutto caved in to pressure from increasingly influential Islamists and banned alcohol, before being overthrown and ultimately hanged by the military government of Islamist general Zia ul-Haq.

“That completely changed the hotel industry in all of Pakistan,” said Happy Minwalla, owner of Metropole Hotel. “Karachi was all about entertainment, about fun, about people doing things. Sadly the situation has changed.”

Prohibition was the death knell for the clubs, but it did not eradicate the thirst for a nightlife.

Today, most parties happen behind the closed doors and high walls of private homes. “Wine shops”, often run by Christians, sell alcohol to locals, while bootleggers deliver high-end liquor to the doors of the wealthy.

Pilot Akeel Akhtar turns his home into a club twice a month for a select group of guests with Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones and modern hits blaring out.

“This is a private place, we don’t put (it) on any social media, Facebook, we don’t advertise it at all. It is just between friends,” he explains, as he pulls out his electric guitar to the delight of his guests.

“We do not have pubs (in Pakistan), and this place is the closest to it,” said Nida, as she sways to the music in the early hours.

“We end the evening with friends on the beach. Will you come with us?”

KARACHI: Karachi remained open for business on Saturday despite a shutter down call by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) over the killing of their workers in an encounter with Rangers.

Business and educational activities continued as per routine, and regular public transport could also be seen on the city’s roads. Rangers personnel were present in sensitive and crowded areas of the metropolis.

According to a Rangers spokesperson, at least eight people belonging to the MQM were arrested for forcibly shutting down shops. Rangers commended the ‘peaceful residents of Karachi for rejecting the strike call’, Express News reported.

Meanwhile, MQM issued a statement accusing the paramilitary force of forcibly opening shops in the city and arresting some of its members to ‘prove that the strike was a failure’.

Four activists of the MQM were killed in an encounter near Northern Bypass on Thursday night, said the Rangers in a statement issued on Friday.

The Rangers’ spokesperson had claimed that the encounter took place when their troops conducted an operation over the presence of criminals involved in the targeted killing of advocate Syed Ali Hasnain Shah Bukhari, who was gunned down in Korangi on March 4. One of the cases Bukhari had been working on before his death was a missing persons’ case on behalf of the MQM.

Following the deaths, the MQM announced a day of mourning across the country, urging traders to shut their businesses and transporters to remain off the roads.

The huge red crane crashed into a part of the Grand Mosque as it was filled with worshippers, less than two weeks before the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

Officials say strong winds and heavy rains caused the crane to fall.

Correspondents say there have previously been concerns about safety on Saudi construction sites.

The Grand Mosque, known as the Masjid al-Haram, is the largest mosque in the world and surrounds Islam's holiest place, the Kaaba.

At least 230 people were injured in the incident. It is unclear how many people were hurt by the collapse or the stampede that followed it.

Those killed are reported to include Indonesian, Indian, Iranian and Egyptian citizens.

The incident happened at 17:23 local time (14:23 GMT) on Friday.

Videos posted online showed the moment the structure collapsed, with a loud crash followed by panic and shouting. Bodies and blood could be seen on the floor of the mosque.

The head of Saudi Arabia's civil defence agency, Lt Sulayman Bin-Abdullah al-Amr, said an investigation was being carried out to assess the damage, and the "extent of the safety of these sites".

Essam al-Ghalib, a Jeddah-based journalist, said the crane fell through the outer ring of the Grand Mosque and punctured through the roof sending down tonnes of cement and debris onto people either praying or walking through.

Up to two million people are expected to arrive in Mecca for the Hajj from all over the world later this month.

Saudi officials say the crane disaster will not prevent the Hajj going ahead.

Irfan Al-Alawi, from the Islamic Heritage Research Foundation, told the BBC that the Grand Mosque is currently surrounded by 15 large cranes amid major redevelopment work.

"The entire area is like a salvage yard," Mr Al-Alawi said.

"Saudi Arabia has to re-think its health and safety strategy," he said, "as there were 800,000 people in the mosque area at the time of the accident."

The original parts of the Grand Mosque date back 1,400 years. Consisting of a large square surrounded by covered prayer areas, the building has since been extensively modernised, notably from the mid-20th Century.

Saudi authorities began a major expansion of the site last year to increase the area of the mosque by 400,000 square metres (4.3 million square feet), to allow it to accommodate up to 2.2 million people at once.

RIYADH: At least 47 Pakistani pilgrims were in injured in Makkah’s Grand Mosque accident which caused at least 107 pilgrims to lose their lives, Foreign Office spokesperson Qazi Khalillulah confirmed on Saturday.

“Out of the 47 injured Pakistani pilgrims, 22 are under treatment in various hospitals, while 25 others received minor injuries and were discharged after treatment,” he stated.

Meanwhile, Minister for Religious Affairs Sardar Yousaf told Radio Pakistan, that out of the 22 injured, seven are in critical condition.

“We are in constant contact with the Saudi authorities and we have been informed that Pakistani doctors are also providing medical aid to the injured,” he said.

Hajj will go ahead after deadly crane collapse: Saudi official 

This year’s Hajj pilgrimage will go ahead despite a crane collapse which killed more than 100 people at the Grand Mosque of Makkah, a Saudi official told AFP on Saturday.

“It definitely will not affect the hajj this season and the affected part will probably be fixed in a few days,” said the official, who declined to be named.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has extended all possible help to the kingdom, directing its ambassador in Riyadh to visit patients in hospitals.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif also expressed his deep condolences over the unfortunate incident, Radio Pakistan reported.

Nearly 100,000 Pakistanis are in Saudi Arabia to perform hajj.

Religious affairs ministry emergency cell

The Ministry for Religious Affairs, which oversees hajj arrangements, has formed an emergency cell which people can contact to get information about their relatives.

People can call the cell in Lahore at: 042-111725425, or they can call the liaison in Saudi Arabia on: 8001166622.

The incident

A massive construction crane crashed into Makkah’s Grand Mosque in stormy weather Friday, killing at least 107 people and injuring 238, Saudi authorities said, less than a fortnight before the hajj pilgrimage starts.

The civil defence authority said on Twitter that emergency teams were sent to the scene after a “crane fell at the Grand Mosque.”

That came about an hour after it tweeted that Makkah was “witnessing medium to heavy rains,” with some pictures circulating on social media showing lightning.

The towering crane toppled forward, smashing through a block on the eastern side of the mosque where the long corridor for Saffa-Marwa are located.

Director General of Civil Defense team later said that strong winds had caused the crane to topple over.

As many as 50 rescue workers were working with around 80 ambulances standing by.

Pictures of the incident on Twitter showed bloodied bodies strewn across a courtyard where the top part of the crane, which appeared to have bent or snapped, had crashed into the several storey-high building.

A video on YouTube showed people screaming and scurrying around right after a massive crash was heard and as fog engulfed the city.

The incident occurred as hundreds of thousands of Muslims gather from all over the world for the annual hajj pilgrimage expected to begin on September 21.

The Grand Mosque is usually at its most crowded on Fridays.

The governor of Makkah region, Prince Khaled al-Faisal, has ordered an investigation into the incident and was heading to the mosque, the official @makkahregion page on Twitter said.

He added in a subsequent tweet that despite the tragedy, this year’s hajj will go on as per schedule, directing officials concerned to “rearrange” and “restore” the site of the crash. He further said that the Saudi government will provide facilities to the injured to complete their religious obligations.

Meanwhile, online activists created a hashtag on Twitter urging Makkah residents to donate blood at hospitals in the area.

No details were immediately available on the nationalities of the victims.

But Iran’s official IRNA news agency, quoting the head of the Hajj Organisation, said that 15 Iranian pilgrims were among those injured.

Most of them were treated as outpatients, Saeid Ohadi said.

A massive project is currently underway to expand the area of the mosque by 400,000 square metres (4.3 million square feet), allowing it to accommodate up to 2.2 million people at once.

The mosque is surrounded by a number of cranes.

The hajj has largely been incident-free during the past few years, with Saudi Arabia investing billions of dollars in transport and other infrastructure to facilitate the movement of the huge numbers of people who take part.

The official SPA news agency said in a statement that by Friday, almost 800,000 pilgrims had arrived into the kingdom for Hajj.