Karachi blues
Among the major failures of the present government is its inability to bring peace to Karachi. Topmost government figures have come to Karachi to restore peace without achieving any success. Many think that politicking rather than statesmanship on the part of PPP, ANP and MQM is responsible for keeping the pot boiling. Early this year the MQM had blamed the PAC for lawlessness and got the organisation banned but still there was no respite to the killings in the city. Soon after taking over as the new Home Minister, Manzur Wassan assured the media that “Not a single incident of target killing has taken place since I assumed charge as the Home Minister.” Within days there was again resurgence in target killings.
The most pathetic performance has been that of the Interior Minister who seems to be totally clueless and thoroughly ineffective as far as restoration of peace in Karachi is concerned. His statements have at times been characterised by sheer inanity, at others they have been highly provocative. After making claims like “there would be no target killing from tomorrow,” he now sees foreign hand involved in the unending mayhem. On Sunday, he said the weapons being used in Karachi come from Israel. If the claim is correct, this would indicate a total failure on the part of his ministry to stop the smuggling. Thanks the sins of omission and commission on the part of the Interior Ministry, Karachi is already flush with tens of thousands of licenced weapons as well as illegal ones smuggled from other provinces. At times his observations indicate little sense of propriety like his claim on Wednesday that 70 percent of those reported to have fallen victim to targeted killings die in fact “at the hands of their wives or girlfriends.”
The pursuit of quick fixes that charterises politicking has to give way to honest talk among the three parties. The ethnic reality in urban Sindh has to be correctly reflected in Census 2011 and get due representation in the next elections for Sindh Assembly. Any attempt at engineering the results in the two exercises has to be effectively discouraged. Meanwhile, there should be no tolerance of blackmail.
