By Staff Reporter
KARACHI: Stocks witnessed sharp decline Monday as the market opened after three days of mourning that witnessed widespread violence and unrest in the country in aftermath of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. In the first hour, a key index of the Karachi Stock Exchange declined by 5 percent or 700 points in what dealers said was one of the sharpest drops in memory. The bourse closed Thursday just hours before Bhutto’s murder, after which an official three-day period of mourning was announced. The KSE-100 index fell more than 700 points to 14,078 after trading began. “This is a historic fall and is reflective of the unrest in the entire country,” said Waheed Jan, a broker based in Islamabad. He said that the investors were on a selling spree, which caused the decline.