Karachi, the financial hub of Pakistan, has been left at the mercy of different gangs and mafias.
The bloody mayhem that had engulfed the city over the past few years had revealed that the city was being controlled not by the government but the cruel mafias and gangs who maintained their merciless grip over the city, according to a report aired on a private television channel on Tuesday.
Bank looting, land grabbing, target killings, extortion, kidnapping and bloody feuds amongst different political and sectarian groups have now become routine affairs in the provincial metropolis.
Karachiites have been living through this nerve-shattering situation for a long since, but unfortunately the government, both at provincial and federal levels, seemed less concerned about the continuing bloodshed.
Ethnic, sectarian and politically-linked violence have taken 1,726 lives in the city from January to June 2013, which was around 45 percent higher as compared to 1,215 deaths during the same period in 2012. The constant failures in maintaining the law and order situation in the city have raised many questions on the performance of the law-enforcement agencies. Even then, no one cared to answer.
During the recent spate of violence, the city Lyari, one of the oldest localities of the provincial metropolis, had turned in to a battlefield where the rule of rival groups/gangs had turned it into a no-go area. Firmly entrenched mafias and rival gangs had disrupted the lives of civilians and scared the dwellers to such an extent that they have started migration to distant areas of Badin and Thatta.
The less privileged people who couldn’t migrate were living their lives under stress as gangsters used rockets, grenades and other weapons against each other thus leading to severe causalities among the civilians.
According to the Human Resource Commission of Pakistan, 1,215 citizens have been killed in Karachi violence over the same period last year. HRCP revealed that despite the high number of people killed in the port city each month, curbing violence and the consequent killings did not appear to be a priority for the authorities concerned.
In spite of taking strict action against the culprits and providing security to the unfortunate dwellers of Lyari, Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah repeatedly stressed that all was well. According to him this internal migration was nothing new and nothing to worry about.
Furthermore, the federal government was unable to make things better in Lyari as the Sindh government considered it as interference, while the situation worsens with each passing day.
Keeping in mind the prolonged mayhem that had engulfed the city, one could easily make out that the writ of the state did not exist here at all. Apart from Lyari, other areas of the metropolis were also under the control of one group or another. Furthermore, these groups were political, religious or simply criminal.
No security plan could be successful unless the authorities concerned and politicians came together to work for national interest and get rid of the militant wings once and for all.
