De-weapoinsation dramas in Karachi

On August 23, 2011, the Pakistani government decided to launch a ‘surgical operation’ immediately and without discrimination, in all areas of Karachi which had become ‘combat zones’ because of political turf wars, sectarian strife, extremist terrorism, as well as ‘target killings’, extortion, and other patterns of criminal violence. The decision came in response to a relentless succession of killings that escalated after the assassination of a former member of the National Assembly Ahmed Karimdad alias Waja Karimdad of the Pakistan People’s Party, on August 17, 2011. Islamabad has now directed the Rangers, police and other civil law enforcement agencies to ‘restore peace’ in Karachi.
The demand for the ‘de-weaponisation’ of Karachi has been voiced with increasing stridency by different quarters of society as well as political parties. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the Awami National Party have also endorsed the de-weaponisation demand.
In 2001, the Pakistan government adopted the United Nations Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons and announced the launch of a campaign to counter the rampant ‘Kalashnikov culture’ in the country. A ‘de-weaponisation’ campaign was launched by the then General Pervez Musharraf regime, on June 1, 2001. The Interior Ministry de-licensed weapons for re-registration and announced amnesty for people who surrendered illegal weapons. At the end of the amnesty period, on June 20, 2001, the Surrender of Illicit Arms Act, 1991, was enforced and a ‘crackdown’ commenced the following day. Within two months, about 25,000 illegal weapons were recovered and 9,663 people were arrested.
Similar campaigns followed in 2005 and 2007, but the ban on the possession and display of weapons was never fully implemented, nor did successive Governments take any serious steps to monitor or halt the issuance of arms licences – a process dominated by gross irregularities and corruption. The state and various political parties in Pakistan have always maintained a high degree of ambivalence with regard to arms possession by a number of covertly sponsored extremist formations, and this has created the spaces for a vast underground trade and network of illegal weapons’ possession.
Unsurprisingly, the danger and the consequent violence appear to be spreading. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) in a statement on August 5, 2011, noted that the violence in Karachi this year has been the deadliest since 1995, when more than 900 killings were reported in the first half of the year. According to the Sindh government report submitted to the Supreme Court on August 26, 2011, 300 people were murdered in incidents of target killings, and 232 cases had been registered in the preceding one month. The report stated that 117 target killers had been arrested and the challans of 179 accused had been submitted in the court. The Sindh attorney general, however, contended that the judiciary could not resolve the issue, citing the example of one target killer, who was involved over 100 cases of murder, who had been acquitted by the court. Earlier, during the proceedings, Chief Justice (CJ) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, heading a five-member bench, observed that, in the preceding month, the situation in Karachi had been out of control, with a complete breakdown of the government’s machinery. Chaudhry noted, “People are being abducted for ransom; beheaded dead bodies of innocents with tied arms and legs, wrapped in sacks, are being recovered in large numbers daily and street crime is rampant.”
Meanwhile, Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah disclosed, on August 9, 2011, that, on an average, 20 illegal arms were recovered daily in Karachi, during the current year and that 4,000 illegal arms had already been seized in 2011. Shah also stated that 191,780 licences had been issued in the Sindh Province, of which 150,000 were issued just between 2001 and 2008. During a debate in the Senate on January 18, 2011, it was revealed that there were no less than an estimated two million weapons in Karachi alone. In a November 30, 2010, report, Interior Minister Rehman Malik acknowledged that over 30,000 arms licenses had been acquired fraudulently through corrupt officials in Karachi – and that individuals often held up to 10 weapons against each such license. On August 1, 2010, Malik had said that “some people in Karachi are keeping around 50 weapons on a single licence”. In addition, thousands of illegal weapons are smuggled into the city each year by a range of non-state actors, including terrorist groups; armed, ethnic, sectarian and political formations; organized crime groups; as well as significant numbers of individuals.
According to one Karachi police report of March 6, 2011, the number of 9-mm pistols sold in the city stood at 125,000 in 2010 alone. The report also said that 3,000 out of a total of 35,000 people had been targeted by 30-bore or 9-mm pistols in the preceding three years in Karachi. 9-mm pistols are available in market at a price ranging between Rs 12,000 and Rs 35,000 per unit, and a 30-bore pistol costs between from Rs 4,000 and Rs 11,000. The much publicised de-weaponisation programme in Karachi appears, once again, to be bound to fail, with a manifest lack of will in the government to apply existing laws uniformly.