Total support of all parties augurs well
Karachi, the bustling metropolis, has few parallels when it comes to bloodletting. For the past six years, the city has been afflicted by the worst violence imaginable. Crime, ethnic and sectarian violence has mated with the drug and weapons trafficking underworld to mutate into the law enforcement agencies’ worst nightmare. The city of lights has been in the grip of violence for most of its recent past but this hopefully is expected to change in the coming days.
The three main players who decide the city’s fate are the PPP, the MQM and the ANP. These three political entities have sacrificed Karachi at the altar of their own interests. The intelligence agencies and the heavily politicized police have time and again pointed toward the parties, which they say sport armed militant wings and patronise the city’s underworld. The solution to this mess may seem straight forward but is complicated by various intricacies. The police is pro-MQM, thanks to the level of politicization that the institution has gone through. This single fact has all but paralysed Karachi. Up till now the only solution to this atrocious situation was the one found in the barrel of a gun. Up north, events in the national legislature point toward a probable change in stance by Karachi’s varied political stakeholders.
Quite surprisingly, the last week has proven that the federal government may have finally come out swinging against the menace of militancy in Pakistan’s largest city. Following the interior minister’s remarks of an ‘indiscriminate and impartial operation against the city’s terrorists’, in a rare show of support, the entire opposition seconded the stance of cocking the guns for action against the Karachi’s most wanted. Over the course of this week hundreds of alleged terrorists have been arrested by the Rangers and police. The PPP provincial government has towed the federal government’s line and applauded the operation while the MQM has gone on the defensive, claiming the arrest of hundreds of its ‘innocent’ activists. Khurshid Shah, the opposition leader has categorically stated that the action is not aimed at any single political entity, saying that around four dozen militants had been nabbed from the Lyari area of the city.
That the political parties’ across the board have endorsed the Interior Minister’s plan augurs well towards bringing peace to Karachi and should lead to the implementation of the plan after the cabinet meeting scheduled for Tuesday. There are many positive elements of the plan: it does not violate provincial autonomy as the federal government provides the province crucial support but doesn’t go beyond that in taking ownership, the leadership role remains with the Sindh chief minister, the operation is likely to be transparent and non-discriminatory and there is no role for the army. Despite the recent past being most dismal, hopefully the future is going to be brighter for the blood-soaked metropolis and its denizens.