On 12 May, at least 30 people were killed and more than 100 injured in clashes when suspended chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry arrived in Karachi to address a bar council ceremony. After his arrival on Karachi airport at about 1200 hours , there was a heavy bloodshed in the streets between the supporters of different political parties. Justice’s lawyers claimed that security forces tried to forcefully detain him when he landed in Karachi to prevent his address to members of the Bar Association. His defence counsel Aitzaz Ahsan told that "Rangers personnel and police dragged the chief justice to the exit door.

Meanwhile the Police blocked approach roads with containers, tankers and buses, apparently to prevent his supporters from staging a welcome. After spending several hours confined in the airport, he went back to Islamabad. When he was stranded in the lounge of airport at least eight people died in skirmishes outside the airport.

The Citizens of Karachi saw another full day of blood shed and chaos. The dead bodies were lying on the streets and nobody was allowed to pick them up. The injured people shouted for help and there was no one to help them. When camerapersons and reporters, of a private TV channel; lying on ground and taking shelter of the walls, were giving live coverage of the firing on their newsroom, it looked viewers were watching incidents in some remote war torn territory in Afghanistan. But, sadly, it was in Karachi, the city of 16 million people
and the commercial nerve center of Pakistan.