Analysts and defence experts have been warning that the disturbed security situation in the northwest as well as in Balochistan will be auxiliary efforts by Pakistan’s adversaries meant to prepare ground for main assault in Karachi where the main battle will be fought. This prediction has come true and the economic hub is today bleeding profusely. One can refer to Altaf Hussain’s warning to Karachiites to stock one month’s ration at their homes.
Notwithstanding the perverse role of PPP, MQM and ANP, foreign hand is definitely involved to keep the streets of Karachi drenched in human blood. A H Raja rightly writes that “having sufficiently bruised the limbs of body of Pakistan, fatal blows are now being delivered on the head. Conditions are being prepared for the employment of Army in aid of civil power. Like North Waziristan, Karachi is another trap set up for the Army to step in and get further diluted and possibly defamed.”
Our self-centred rulers engulfed in their own fears have belatedly ordered Police-Rangers surgical action to stop the wanton bloodshed. This action may bring temporary calm but the disease will remain uncured. Columnist Ejaz Haider has lamented over the political death dance in Karachi and has though differentiated today’s situation from that of the 90s but he is also not so optimistic about the outcome of an army operation, if at all it is conducted under the constitutional binding. But one thing is clear that the stage has been set to ditch the Pakistan army.
SHUMAILA RAJA
Rawalpindi