Lyari crackdown

For 8 days police with all its might and incompetence unleashed an operation in Lyari, which failed to nab armed gangs, but only succeeded in killing and terrorizing local residents. Lyari the oldest residential locality of Karachi, is home to bulk of Baloch settlers for more than a century. These are hard working simple folk doing physical jobs and along with Pathans, previously comprised bulk of workforce in KPT. Why were they laid off in the first place?. Has the state not failed in providing these original residents of Karachi subsidized education, health and vocational training. It is the state which is responsible for allowing Karachi to become infested with weapons, where armed gangs indulge in target killings, street crimes not just in Lyari, but all parts of this city.
Primarily it is the PPP which has always been voted from this locality, that has to bear responsibility for failing to deliver. In past few years, Lyari’s unemployed numbers have escalated and job opportunities become scarce, making them prey to armed gangs looking for recruits. The Sindh Home Minister for many decades has never been from Lyari, and therefore they cannot be blamed for cultivating criminals and spread of weapons in Karachi. It is also unfair to state that Lyari alone is breeding ground for criminals, because target killings, extortion, kidnapping, drug and land mafia gangs terrorize all residents of Karachi.
If the official version of Interior Minister is to be believed that prohibited automatic weapons, rocket launchers, grenades are stocked there by mobsters, the question arises how did these weapons, not produced in Pakistan arrive here. Obviously these heavy weapons came by sea, air or along land route from across the border, or even worse through connivance of corrupt individuals in our security units. After all the Baloch residents of Lyari cannot be blamed for over 60,000 missing containers that left KPT and never reached Afghanistan.
It is Pakistani citizens who live in Lyari, and Interior Minister should not have placed head money for them dead or alive, nor threatened to burn their houses, if weapons are found there. When the state fails to protect citizens from threats and brutalization of criminals, than residents may be forced against their will to allow weapons to be located within their houses. Thousands have been killed in target killings, by criminals who enjoy political support from ruling coalition, not by Lyari armed gangs alone.
MALIK TARIQ ALI
Lahore