Fear stalks Pakistani business after Bhutto murder

KARACHI (Reuters) - Pakistani businessmen are veterans of political crises, but this time they say it's different.

From self-employed truck drivers to wealthy factory owners, no one can recall anything like the violence that shook Pakistan after last week's murder of former premier Benazir Bhutto.

"This is the worst situation we've ever faced," said Barkat Ali, surveying the charred remains of a petrol station and restaurant that he and his brother-in-law set up in Karachi four years ago.

"Right now, the security is present," Ali added, peering over his spectacles at a few soldiers patrolling across the road in an industrial area of the country's largest city. "But if they leave the area, the fear is there. It's never happened before."

The Korangi industrial estate looks like a war zone: dozens of trucks have been torched and their remains flank both sides of the main street. Two trucks laden with wheat were still smouldering on Tuesday, five days after Bhutto's assassination.

Her murder, in a gun-and-bomb attack at an election-campaign rally last Thursday, unleashed a whirlwind of anger, especially in Karachi, capital of Bhutto's home province. Mobs torched buildings, vehicles and trains. Businesses were looted.

"They burnt our factory. It's a total loss," said Rashid Ali Warraich, standing with his hands jammed into the pockets of his leather jacket, surrounded by the ashes of the family business.

A small factory that once made bath towels for export to the United States, Unit 2 of Fazal Sardar Textile Mills was attacked by hundreds of rioters a day after Bhutto's assassination. The place had been abandoned the night before, so no one was injured.

"This is the first time they have come in the factory and burnt, in all history," said Warraich who, like other Karachi businessmen, admit to having been shocked out of their previous stoicism about Pakistan's history of political unrest.

"We think this could be the beginning," he said, waving a hand at a charred heap of what were once white and blue-trimmed bath towels. "We are afraid for next time."

SPUTTERING BACK TO LIFE

Fear and anxiety are not confined to the Korangi district.

Industrialists up and down the country are counting their losses. Though only a dozen or more small factories were burnt down in Karachi, the worst-affected area, fear brought virtually all of Pakistani industry to a halt: for at least three days, workers stayed home; roads, railways and depots were deserted.

There was no one to either make or move goods. Though Karachi port, the country's largest, kept handling ships, trucks stopped turning up to collect the consignments when the trouble started.

"It's now totally back to normal," said the port's traffic manager, S.H. Khamis.

The Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry estimates that losses in the first four days after Bhutto's killing amounted to almost $1 billion (503 million pounds) -- equal to about half of a percentage point of gross domestic product, based on official Pakistan GDP data.

"I think this is the worst that we have seen for maybe two decades or so. I have never seen a case like this with so many cars burnt," said Shamim Ahmed Shamsi, the chamber's chief.

Rukhsar Ahmed, who part-owns a small roadside cafe for workers in the Korangi estate, agrees. His modest two-storey building, which doubled as his home, was looted and torched.

"It scares me that someone might come and do the same thing tomorrow," said Ahmed, rubbing his unshaven chin. He wore some of his few remaining possessions: a pale-blue shalwar kameez -- loose-fitting shirt and trousers -- and an olive-green sweater.

"But you have to earn your living. There's no other option."

Ahmed and his partners, all of them rural villagers trying to make their fortune in Karachi, are starting again. He said he had already borrowed money from a relative to re-equip the kitchen.

But Barkat Ali, who estimates he and his brother-in-law lost almost 30 million rupees (244,000 pounds) in the attacks on their petrol station and restaurant, is not rushing back into business.

"We will take a couple of days to decide," Ali said. "We don't know what's going to happen but it looks like we have to re-start. We can't just sit idle."

(Editing by David Fogarty)

($1 = 61.55 Pakistani rupee)