Why doesn't the Government Establish its Writ in Karachi?

By Saeed Qureshi

How many more dead bodies, the human draculas want to devour in Karachi? Why the government does not restore its write in troubled Karachi? The governments of both Sindh province and the federal are unconcerned spectators to see the bloodletting mayhem going on. The murderous mafias and monstrous gangs have divided Karachi into various zones and maintain their merciless sway on these.

Their operatives freely and daringly loot the banks, grab the land, occupy the houses, trade in narcotics and lethal drugs and force the business community to pay them the demanded sums of money. If they refuse they are kidnapped, tortured and killed.

The people of Karachi have been living through this nerve-shattering situation for a decade or so. The outlaws challenge the government law-enforcement agencies and kill the policemen and intelligence operatives with impunity. 

Many prominent social activists and public figures engaged in the service of the people have been eliminated. There is a hair-raising escalation in the bloody feuds in Karachi and there seems to be no let up in that savagery.

The latest gruesome murder is that of an academic, Professor Sibte Jaffar ostensibly for sectarian vendetta. The callous assassin refuse to acknowledge that the deceased professor besides being a Shia faithful, was also a human being and had a family to support.  

Prior to that grisly assassination, the Director of Orangi housing project and a highly dedicated social figure Perveen Rehman was gunned down. Are the sectarian mafias getting too strong as to wrest the control from the police and law enforcement agencies and kill anyone on their own bidding?

The government with its resources and a huge network of police, rangers and army has remained aloof and from its silence one would be tempted to infer that the power wielders and the political parties could also be behind this tattered social peace in Karachi. 

One of the strident reasons that would deter the people from voting for the PPP and its coalition partners is the government’s utter failure to protect the lives of the citizens and save businesses of this country from killers and extortionists.

On daily basis headless or tortured corpses are found in various areas of Karachi. Businesses and industrial activity is grinding to a standstill as a result of the specter of horror let loose on Karachi by the heinous criminals stalking in the length and breadth of Karachi. There is no check on them and no conscious or planned operation has been launched to stem this macabre piling of dead bodies of the human beings.

Elections apart, the most pressing need is to stop the killer gangs and dangerous mafias from killing the people at free will or in mutual fight for controlling their delineated zones in Karachi. Is Karachi a city becoming like Beirut where similar horrendous environment was in vogue for years together? 

Even in Baghdad, where sectarian bad blood between Sunnis and Shias has been rife for ages, is no match to Karachi’s worsening spectacle. Karachi is not a war zone like Syrian cities yet life is equally unsafe in this city as in Kabul, Damascus and Aleppo.

Karachi is burning and the social and business life is turning into ashes due to the utter apathy and callous indifference of the authorities. Who else can bridle these raging orgies of human blood and an avalanche of civil war and from turning this largest city into a killing-field? I have no hope. 

Let us not wait for the elections as that would take a couple of months more and one can only shudder how many precious lives would be lost by that time.Even elections cannot be held peacefully in such a dangerous and unstable environment. 

The rival parties could use the goons to either snatch votes, coerce the voters for the candidate of their choice. There could be shooting and gun battles and kidnapping of the voters on the polling stations.  Such sinister happenings could jeopardize the pristine objective of fair and free elections.