These allegations may or may not be true but the Sindh government needs to order a fresh probe to ascertain this
LAHORE: This is with reference to Leader of the Opposition Khursheed Shah’s comments on the enhanced role of the apex committee in Sindh. Mr Shah must understand that, legally, the elected provincial government in Sindh has miserably failed to perform its constitutional role of protecting lives and properties of citizens from known criminals. It has done so because it was politically expedient and helped the government accrue the benefits of the patronisation of the criminal mafia, which has long held Karachi and other parts of Sindh hostage to terror and extortion.
In the Baldia Town fire in Karachi, which took place in September 2012, resulting in the burning alive of 289 innocent citizens in a garment factory, it has been alleged that arsonists locked the factory from outside after the owners allegedly refused to pay extortion money. These allegations may or may not be true but the Sindh government needs to order a fresh probe to ascertain this. The investigation of this incident has been so embarrassingly snail-paced that it speaks volumes of the kind of country we live in.
There is hardly any trader or businessman in Karachi who has not paid extortion money to criminals. Most of these criminals have been patronised by political parties and extremists groups. These nefarious groups are involved in a multi-billion rupee business, knowing full well the cost of their designs to the state and its people. But greed and shamelessness make people blind. The law and order situation is poor all over the country, but nowhere is the law of the land so openly and defiantly trampled upon as it is in Karachi. Profits from this criminal economy are being transferred to foreign off-shore accounts, through same irregular channels which are utilised by the corrupt elite to buy expensive properties in Gulf, Europe, Canada, etc., while decisions like monitoring bank accounts of foreigners are being taken by the federal government as an eyewash.
Malik Tariq Ali
Published in The Express Tribune, February 22nd, 2015.
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