Cleansing has to be surgical, and clinically efficient
There is nothing unusual about it. It is a measure of desensitisation of the governments – both federal and provincial, the intelligence agencies, the law enforcing arms in police and the Rangers and the general public for there is not much of an outrage on the streets as the nation’s industrial and mercantile jugular vein, Karachi, continues to bleed – day in, day out. As the cabinet meeting draws near, scheduled for Tuesday, to discuss the interior minister’s supposedly comprehensive plan that has the backing of all political parties save the MQM (which surprisingly is rooting for the army action over the one supervised by the same chief minister with whom they were allies for five years on the bounce – give or take those few days now and then when they walked out of the coalition in protest over one thing or another). While the new federal dispensation – which has the luxury of independence from the reins put on its predecessor being encumbered by two bloody-minded antagonists in the MQM and the ANP on its side of the aisle – has still taken nearly 100 days to mull on the issue, the carnage in Karachi has remained unabated. Whether any meaningful action would flow and stem the bloodletting and embark on cleansing after the cabinet finally meets is moot. But another seven mowed down in Karachi on Saturday are a stark reminder – as if one needed any reminding after nearly six years of mayhem and murder in what was hailed as the city of lights, something ought to be done, something quick and effective.
The consensus, the alibi of political powers-that-be for inaction, too has now been arrived at and duly hailed by the commentariat. The MQM’s ‘let the army do it’ proposal has been chucked out of the window and now each and every political entity other than the former has agreed on the police and the Rangers doing the cleansing, a la the mid 1990s when the Benazir Bhutto government with an intrepid interior minister in Naseerullah Khan Babar had put the MQM’s goon squad on the run like never before or since. And he had employed just the police to do the job!
The contours of the new plan have not really been shared with public. Only the outline is known: the operation will be led by the Sindh chief minister, the executing arm shall be the police and the Rangers acting on the basis of actionable intelligence provided by the ISI and the IB. Would this operation bring peace to Karachi – putting an end to killing, kidnapping and extortion? That remains to be seen, for the metropolis is now different from the mid 1990s. Into the cauldron now is not just the MQM and its considerable muscle creating mayhem. Others – the ANP, the PPP’s Aman Committee and the sectarian outfits – have taken a leaf out of the MQM’s book to create their own turfs and their own reign of terror. And on top of it are various mafias and the Al-Qaeda and the TTP operatives. This is much more potent, far deadlier brew, but it needs to be taken head on, without delay and irrespective of who belongs to which party. The cleansing has to be surgical and clinically efficient.
