No civilised person can differ with the PPP-led coalition government’s argument that the ongoing Lyari operation is must for cleansing one of the city’s most volatile neighbourhoods of the heavily-armed gangsters, who have established a state within a state in the impoverished locality.
Led by the proscribed People’s Amn Committee (PAC), the notorious gangsters are giving a very tough time to the law enforcers who are by far ill-equipped, and even lesser in numbers than their rivals employing highly-trained shooters armed with sophisticated weaponry.
However, the launch of the Lyari showdown on April 27 sparked an endless guessing game in the country about the reason(s) behind the long-delayed operation.
While some oversimplified it as the government’s imminent action against criminals, others questioned the PPP regime’s intentions, saying that the move is politically motivated.
The conspiracy theorists, also bearing some like-mindedness with the spy agencies, perceive that it was must for the politically-embattled ruling party to have an armed wing within its ranks in an ethno-linguistically divided city, where “gun politics” has deepened its roots, to which some political analysts also agree,.
It is believed that this very phenomenon, which may also be aptly dubbed politically disputed, has made the disciples of non-violence icon Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, widely known as Bacha Khan, from the Awami National Party to shun the politics of non-violence and take weapons to contain their heavily-armed political rivals.
Be it the now-dead Abdul Rehman Baloch (aka Rehman Dakait) or the banned PAC, the name of PPP has always been there somewhere in the shadows. This, however, seems to be the pressing political pressure, or objectively saying political interest, that compelled the ruling party, at different times, to disown the once declared party loyal as “terrorists”.
Ever since firebrand former home minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza parted ways with the PPP, Uzair Baloch, the PAC chief, could not come to terms with the party and has eventually ended up as the top most wanted gangsters of Lyari in the Sindh Home Department’s list.
Now as almost all other warring gangs of Lyari turned hostile towards the PPP for one reason or the other, Arshad Pappu, another major Lyari gang war figure, is said to be the newfound blue-eyed boy of the ruling party in its traditional political stronghold.
There is an impression that CID SSP Chaudhry Aslam and his team, engaged in the weeklong operation, are backed and guided by the locals belonging to the Pappu gang.
Arshad Pappu being given an entry into Lyari is fast becoming a common utterance circulating in every roadside meeting in the city.
Even the intelligence personnel do not decline from the impression.
Apart from what the covert and overt motives of the PPP government are, the reason quoted by the Sindh government for initiating the Lyari operation is quite objectionable.
“The operation was launched against criminals after the murder of a local PPP leader,” Sindh Information Minister Shazia Marri had reportedly said.
PPP’s former city naib nazim Malik Muhammad Khan was shot dead by unidentified terrorists while leading a rally protesting the Supreme Court’s conviction of the prime minister in a contempt of court case.
The official statement appears to be quite selfish on the part of the PPP.
Condemnable though, the assassination of a party activist, no matter how heavy his political weight is, should not form the basis for an action against the enemies of peace in a city or country by a government, the belligerent prime minister of which, does not feel tired of claiming in the Supreme Court to have the support of the country’s 180 million people.
Instead, the cold-blooded killing of hundreds and thousands of people in the violent incidents, mostly politically-motivated, in this multiethnic commercial capital of the country during last four years should have convinced the most-referred democratically-elected government to move against those responsible.
One can hardly resist the impression that as if only the PPP men’s blood is so worthy, in the eyes of their elected representatives, that makes the government launch an operation against the criminals.
If this is the policymakers’ mindset in the present government, the violence-hit masses would be left with no option but to wait, or inhumanely saying, pray for the assassination of an activist or leader of the ruling party for decisive action against terrorists.
Why the Lyari operation now?
