The diktat is endorsed by some members of the Churra (Knife) Group, a vigilante group that has sprung up in Karachi to send people, particularly women, wearing ``undesirable clothes'' back home.

An incident in the tony Clifton area of Karachi has left women worried. A young woman, who went to a shopping complex wearing a sleeveless dress, was attacked in daylight by two bearded men wearing green turbans. They brushed past her bare arm with a razor, to get the message home.

After that incident, which was widely reported in the local press, many women are now staying away from the shopping area, to the local businessmen's dismay. ``Serves the shopkeepers right,'' says one Karachi woman.

Unlike most ofurban Pakistan, which is relatively conservative, in Karachi, women wearing jeans, saris and trendy salwar suits are common. The city also has the highest percentage of middle-class women in the work force -- one reason, observers say, why some religious parties have targeted this city of 12 million in their ``cleansing drive.'' According to their diktats, women should stay at home. In public, ``they should neither be seen nor heard.''

Emboldened by Sharif's steps to impose his version of Islam on Pakistan, religious groups have sprung into action. After announcing his Shariat Bill, Sharif told religious parties to go out and convince the people of its ``need.'' As one Karachi journalist puts it, ``Some parties interpreted this as a signal to go forth and convert by force.''

It is only in a city like Karachi, which has not seen an end to ethnic and religious strife for over a decade now, that people seriously take rumours about men running about with syringes in their hands containing the HIV virus. OneUrdu newspaper reported, ``They inject this into women not wearing proper clothing.'' This has caused many women to take precautions, though most still laugh the stories off.

Activists of the right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami take pride in recounting how they once sprinkled acid on girls at Karachi University whom they considered ``ultra-modern.'' Recalling these incidents of the 1980s, students of left-wing and progressive parties at the university say the intention was more to harass them for joining the ranks of liberals than prevent them from wearing modern dresses. ``It's all politics,'' says a former student activist, Muhammad Sajid.

The recent incidents have, however, worried many. Irfan Husain, who writes for the respected Karachi daily, Dawn, notes, ``In our blind insistence on turning our back on our South Asian origins, we have chosen to identify with the most backward elements in the Islamic world.''

Husain says the fact that the culprits are not apprehended only emboldens them. He says there arepeople who say women are ``getting what they deserve'' for wearing half-sleeved shirts in a conservative society.``But this untenable view,'' says Husain, ``begs the larger question of human rights: Who is to decide what constitutes acceptable attire? And if women are forced indoors, then what is to stop these same zealots from decreeing the length of the beard men must have?'' When that happens, the threshold of tolerance may well and truly be crossed.