KARACHI: An increasing ethnic divide is threatening the livelihood of millions of daily wagers who are now being financially targeted by the rival, political groups, which are bent on imposing the writ of their faction in ‘enemy territory’.
A few days ago, around 13 people were killed when armed men stormed into the spare- parts market of Sher Shah, killing anyone within sight. The men walked through the market, opening shutters to kill the shopkeepers inside. The victims of the brazen attack also included a family of three, a father and his two sons.
The carnage at Sher Shah Market and the ensuing eruption of ethnic violence in this multi-ethnic city had put the livelihood of thousands of employees in jeopardy in areas such as Saddar, Lyari, and Keamari, as well as Hub and Gwadar in Balochistan.
Unconditional termination: Since the Sher Shah massacre, thousands of workers have been shown the door by their ‘helpless’ employers who have no choice other than to succumb to the pressure being exerted by certain political elements, which demand an unconditional termination of the employees speaking a language other than their own.
Now it is a routine matter for proprietors of different businesses to receive life-threats from various political groups asking for lay-offs on ethnic basis. The employers were left with only one option where they either had to obey or face the music for showing defiance.
“Three days after the Sher Shah attack, I went to my garage, where I worked, and my employer told me that he had to fire me because he was receiving life threats,” said Lal Magsi, a motor mechanic from Lyari. Inam Baloch, a labourer at the Karachi Port Trust told Pakistan Today that he and 43 others were laid off after the Sher Shah attack.
“No one is willing to tell us why we were laid off, but we have heard that it was in response to the killings in Sher Shah, something we were not responsible for,” he complained. These developments and tendencies would drastically divide Karachi along ethno-linguistic lines as the city was already reeling from rampant incidents of targeted killings.
Analysts say that the government’s writ was nowhere to be found. The number of people who had lost their lives in the frequent targeted killings this year had reached almost 1,388. People’s Amn Committee spokesman Zafar Baloch confirmed that ‘targeted unemployment’ has so far resulted in the forced sackings of more than 3,000 people of Lyari, who were working in different areas of the city.
Probe: “We have formed a committee to look into these complaints and we will take up the matter with the government,” Baloch told Pakistan Today. “This is a conspiracy to suppress people of a particular sect and we will fight for our people,” he added.
Nearly 10,000 residents of different areas of Karachi working in Hub and Gwadar also face the same problem. “We fear that there could be consequences in Hub and Gwadar too, but we do not want anybody to lose their job and we are not in favour of a violent response from different quarters,” Baloch said.
