Widespread malaise
The gruesome murder of three lawyers in Karachi is yet another reminder of the worsening situation of law and order in the country. Though it is never useful to jump to conclusions immediately, the fact that the three belonged to the Shia sect makes it easy to place the motive of the incident in the larger context of sectarian killings in the country. All across the country, the Shia community has been targeted, be they from the Hazara community in Balochistan, the Turi tribe in the tribal areas or simply, prominent professionals in central and southern Punjab.
The legal fraternity staged a protest across the country in solidarity with their fallen brethren. The courts were boycotted in many towns in the country, from Sindh to KP. At a time when the legal community has come under much criticism regarding their conservative religio-political orientation, it is heartening to note that there are some good things, at least, that have emerged from the rather charged profession-wide activism that the legal fraternity has been given to in the aftermath of the lawyers’ movement.
Whereas the inadequate response of the deep state to the tumult in the north-west can be attributed, to a large extent, on its particular security paradigm regarding Afghanistan, the policy towards sectarian groups in the rest of the country cannot be placed squarely on the policy of strategic depth. Here, it is also a result of the twofold scourges of a state with a limited capacity to respond to challenges and the immense, immense clout that these outfits enjoy in vast swathes of the Punjab. Their rather large presence in urban Sindh has also been the source of much discontent.
Also cognisant should we be of the various fault lines that cut across Karachi and, indeed, the whole country as well. Killings are attributed according to the lens the analyst wears. Several months ago, a killing like this could be attributed to ethno-linguistic rifts. Even killings emanating from personal, professional and trade rivalries have been known, in the past, to have been brushed up under the carpet of the background of hate crimes. A number of innocent religious minority members, for instance, have been implicated in blasphemy cases because of the property they owned or the thriving professional practice they ran.
The increasing inability of the state to keep its monopoly on the use of violence is the backdrop of our national descent into chaos.