Ever since Zia and his military junta resorted to use state funds and power to engineer political structure of this country, the people of Pakistan have suffered untold miseries, death, torture, rise in crimes and abuse. Zia encouraged the growth of ethnic politics, sectarian strife and all sorts of regional divides so that no unified political opposition could emerge against his illegitimate rule. He deliberately involved this country into Afghan war, which benefitted him and few other generals who overnight went from rags to riches by pilfering unaccounted billions poured by CIA to fund this guerrilla war and tons of weapons that were routed through Pakistan for those fighting Soviet Union.
It was because of Zia that Karachi, once a peaceful city, became hostage to an ethnic group which resorted to use of violence to assert its territorial control. Years of criminal overlooking by the state to hold accountable these criminals, emboldened them to expand their illegitimate activities and during Musharraf era this business became so lucrative that target killing, extortion and kidnapping for ransom became a huge business in this battle for turf. Over 180 police officers who dared to challenge these criminals were eliminated through target killings while state displayed impotency and not a single criminal was prosecuted, with net result that these criminals have become monsters like Frankenstein.
In the past four years, this lucrative criminal bonanza induced other armed gangs of major political parties to have their share of this tax free loot. Encouraged by this crime friendly environment, terrorists such as members of so called TTP have now moved to raise funds, emulating organized criminal money making machine being run successfully by Karachi’s political stakeholders. These enemies of Pakistan are now exploiting the corruption riddled law enforcement agencies to help agenda of our foreign enemies executed by our own misled and brainwashed nationals. Had the state invested in education, numerous madrassahs would not have emerged to fill the void. Few of them are nurseries for breeding these miscreants and today pose biggest threat to national security. The feudal political kaki and bureaucratic elite that has misruled us for years is responsible for creating this environment.
MALIK T ALI
Lahore
