IS THERE NO END TO KARACHI VOILENCE?

It was early morning on a day in the last week of the previous month. Everything seemed quite calm in Karachi.
Most of the people across Pakistan think that since Karachiites sleep late, they wake up late as well, but majority of the people in the metropolitan always wake up early.
Before the appearance of school-going children, who are usually carrying overloaded backpacks and sitting inside caged vans rushing to school, sweepers of the municipality were sweeping the streets.
All of a sudden, television channels broke the news: “Two Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) men were killed in PIB Colony.”
Within no time, television channels started showing burning of minibuses and other vehicles, and all the shopkeepers who open their shops early returned to their houses midway.
Nearly 42 cars, buses and rickshaws were set ablaze that day and another wave of violence, which had paused after the Supreme Court’s intervention, started once again.
Residents of this city, who usually remain prepared for any unpleasant situation by stocking enough ration and food items, once again confined themselves to their houses.
With eight more people being killed overnight until the last evening of March, the death toll had reached 15 in the first wave of the notorious targeted killing incidents in Karachi.
And during this spell of bloodbath, the total death toll in the city had reached 83 until the time this story was filed.
Though the city started returning to normalcy this month after a week-long wave of violence that started with the killing of two people, there is still tension everywhere.
Beside the deaths, several people were also injured; hundreds of vehicles were burnt during the three days of mourning.
Pakistan’s commercial hub observed wheel-jam and complete shutter-down strikes for around four days.
It is now assumed by the general public that peace in Karachi is a pause between two waves of violence that has now become the identity of this city.
It is not new for Karachi to witness hundreds of, what local newspapers term, “waves of violence” in the past two decades.
Violence in Karachi has a long history that has existed in the city long before the “Talibanisation of Karachi” debate.
Last year, according to a Human Rights Commission of Pakistan report, Karachi experienced an exceptionally high level of violence and around 1,300 citizens were killed in the city.
I once asked my foreign friend what she knows about Pakistan, and she promptly replied, “Drone attacks, Taliban, television anchors and targeted killings.”
Karachi’s term of “targeted killing”, which is a typical phrase for the shootings by gunmen who roll away on motorcycles, has reached national notoriety now. But the worst are the incidents that start right after any incident of targeted killing.
Until a few days before the recent wave of violence, there were several political events – an enormous public gathering in Karachi by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), one by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Fazl), a huge gathering by those who believe in jihad under the title “Difa-e-Pakistan Council”, one by former army chief Pervez Musharraf, the extraordinary gathering of women by the MQM, and the recent freedom march of a large number of members of the Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz – that remained peaceful and the general public assumed that all these political parties have now learnt to tolerate each other.
But the general assumption became a time-check between news bulletins, roaring Kalashnikovs, rushing ambulances carrying bodies and issuance of statements by different political leaders against one other. Everything was still the same.
Karachi is the city of the helpless, where common citizens, political parties, police, Rangers and the entire government machinery is helpless; even journalists and the most powerful media houses feel helpless when it comes to Karachi violence.
It is sad to watch the largest city of Pakistan – which contributes the largest chunk in the national revenue and also provides jobs and shelter to Pakistanis from every nook and corner of the country and even to those coming from across the borders – entangled in a bloody mess called “targeted killings”.
Everybody knows and no one would name who is behind these incidents. Despite tall claims made by the government, these target-killers are not arrested.
Recently, Interior Minister Rehman Malik claimed that some of these target-killers had been arrested. He announced that these killers would be exposed on television channels and be publicly punished so that no one else could ever imagine getting involved in such incidents, but all his promises are yet to come true.
Common citizens, lawyers, rickshaw and bus drivers, shopkeepers, policemen, journalists and even women and children in Karachi have fallen prey to these notorious incidents of targeted killing.
Apart from bhatta (extortion), personal enmities, tug of war between land grabbers, and sectarian, political and ethnic bifurcation, Karachi has now several other reasons behind these incidents.
Right after the previous wave of violence in the city, the Supreme Court of Pakistan took suo motu notice and started a month-long hearing and directed police authorities and the Sindh High Court (SHC) to send reports on the city situation on a daily basis.
During the hearing on Karachi violence, authorities informed the court of several reasons behind these targeted killings.
The Sindh inspector general of police (IGP) told the court that 40 percent of the police officials had been recruited on political grounds.
He also complained about the lack of personnel to maintain the security of the city. The IGP stated that presently, the total strength of the police force is 32,524, of which approximately 12,000 are performing security duties, including 8,000 deployed for VIPs and only 20,000 personnel of the police force are left for the purpose of policing of 18 million people in Karachi.
The court was also told that more than 30 groups – including the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the MQM, the Awami National Party (ANP), the Jamaat-e-Islami and even banned outfits and religious parties like the Sunni Tehreek – are involved in extortion and those who do not pay the extortion money, fall victim to these incidents.
The Supreme Court was also informed that there are more than 3 million illegal migrants living in the provincial capital city of Karachi, who are also involved in these incidents.
Malik again announced that each of these immigrants would be registered at the police stations and all of them would be sent to their respective countries. But the people of Karachi rarely believe Malik.
These illegal immigrants comprise Bengalis and Bihrais that have held huge rallies in the city and demanded that they be issued national identity cards and citizenship.
Pervez Musharraf, Javed Hashmi and even the MQM support their demand, whereas Sindhi nationalists harshly rejected their demand and said that they should be sent back, as their presence would turn Sindhis into a minority

The SHC chief justice was asked by the Supreme Court to keep an eye on the Karachi situation and take action if there is any violence in the city.
The SHC has taken suo motu action over the killing spree in the port city of Karachi and has asked the law-enforcement agencies to submit a report on the prevalent lawlessness.
The chief justice of the SHC has asked the Sindh IGP and the director general of the Pakistan Rangers-Sindh to submit their report on the killings.
So, now law-enforcement in Karachi is not the responsibility of only police and Rangers, but also of the judiciary.
The ruling PPP government always claimed that these incidents of targeted killings are conspiracies against the democratic government of the PPP and the provincial government has held All Parties Conferences (APCs) many times since 2008.
During these APCs, which was attended by almost all political parties, a code of conduct was drawn that directs parties to remove their flags from the city, erase provoking wall-chalking and graffiti, and not to issue any statement that harms the peace of the city. All participants agreed on that, but practically, all of them are involved in violating the code of conduct.
Right after every wave of violence in the city, the MQM blames the PPP for supporting the People’s Amn Committee and says that the ANP and the Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi are behind the incidents, whereas the PPP, ANP and Haqiqi hold MQM responsible for these incidents.
Some political analysts are of the view that the MQM wants a portfolio for the newly-elected Senator Mustafa Kamal and the ANP wants to see its Sindh chief Senator Shahi Syed in the federal government as a minister, so both parties are mounting pressure on the PPP government with violence in Karachi.
If the PPP government were to give any of them a portfolio in the federal government, it would have to provide the other with the same portfolio, and that the PPP cannot afford to do anymore.
There are independent reports that the Amn Committee, the ANP and the Haqiqi are going to make an undeclared alliance, comprising Pashtuns, Mohajirs, Sindhis and Baloch, ahead of the next election to give a tough time to the MQM.
In return, the MQM has demanded a ban on Haqiqi; and independent analysts are of the view that the MQM wants to put pressure on the government to send a message that such efforts would not be tolerated.
Those who have a long experience of the Karachi situation are of the view that the recent violence in Karachi is the result of wars between those who want to keep the status quo and those who want to break it.
Some politicians like PPP’s Zulfiqar Mirza and PTI’s Imran Khan have always remained very vocal on the Karachi situation and they publicly allege the MQM to be responsible for every wave of violence. But they, too, are silent now.
Due to his bold statements, Khan was banned twice from entering Karachi and abusive slogans against him also appeared on every wall in the city in the past.
But independent sources said that PTI’s public gathering in Karachi was supported by the MQM, so he is now silent over the recent violence.
As for Mirza, it is said that he made his famous speech on someone’s “directives” and the same directives are now saying him to keep silent.
These “targeted killings” are not just limited to the MQM and the ANP. Almost every political and non-political group in Karachi has lost, or claimed of losing, members. How long would these targeted killings haunt the Karachiites? No one has the answer, for sure.