Yes, unfortunately
The Taliban have a large presence in Karachi. The port city is an important part of the militia’s operations. Not only does it serve as an R & R purpose, it is also an important conduit of financing, specially from the middle-east. For those very purposes, even though the city might have been rife with other extremist religious organisations, the Taliban had an incentive to be off the radar, basically. That calculus seems to have changed. As the bodies of one Karachi ANP leader after the other pile up, Karachi is emerging as a centre of violent Taliban activity. The government, with its declared mission statement of ridding the country of the menace of terrorism, seems to have its work cut out for it.
But the Supreme Court has seen it fit to direct the Sindh government to rid the city of the militants. This would have beggared belief had the short order of the five-member bench not been given to the media. Hot on the heels of high-profile questionable decisions like slashing the CNG prices, the apex judiciary, it seems, has now taken up the task of regular , routine office orders. The order in question seems fit coming from the home minister’s office or the IGP’s, not a judicial decree.
There is an argument, of course, that the executive has been incompetent at doing its job, prompting the judiciary to step in. Going by that logic, could it be reasoned then, that since the judiciary (both lower and higher) has also proved to be dreadfully sluggish in its work, with cases stretching for decades, that the elected representatives are within their rights to cover up the slack by giving judgments themselves?
Furthermore, even though this government might not have been able to put as many of the religious extremists behind bars as we would like, it has to be noted that the judiciary has also been letting go many of the militants that the law enforcement agencies catch with such painstaking effort.
As the millions of litigants across the nation would testify, literally in the court of law, that the courts’ working leave much to be desired, perhaps the judiciary could focus more on its backlog and leave the executive, as incompetent as it seem, to do its own job. And when the time comes booted out by the electorate.