An incarceration ends and with it, brings tension to the city of Karachi. The MQM(H) chief Afaq Ahmed was finally released on Saturday after seven years in jail. He had been released earlier but was detained under a maintenance of public order law. The Sindh High Court ruled the leader’s detention under the aforementioned ordered as unlawful and ordered his immediate release. If the current ethnic violence in Karachi is a throwback to the 80’s, many are fearing the city has to brace itself for a reprisal of the violence of the 90’s. Infighting within factions of the MQM had all but burnt the city down in that hapless decade. Most of the violence fizzled out after an operation by second BB government. Things changed when one of the factions found favour with the Musharraf regime and the other was all but decimated. The court’s judgment is what it is. This is a civilised country and there is no provision for unlawful incarceration beyond a certain period of time regardless of possible concerns about law and order situations. It is the responsibility of the law enforcement agencies to ensure the situation doesn’t spill over into violence.
To brace for the inevitable: the MQM(H) has as much a right to practical politics as any other party. They are going to want to participate in the upcoming general elections and, before that, stage rallies as a show of strength. For those who think the upcoming PTI rally in Karachi is going to be a powderkeg, the MQM(H)’s (possible) resurgence might dwarf any such tumult. It is absolutely essential, therefore, for Sindh’s security apparatus to gear up well for the coming months. Perhaps the greatest failure of the Pakistani state is its inability to manage the electoral process in its biggest metropolis. Given how the tectonic plates of the city’s politics are aligning, things are going to get far worse before they get any better.
