Sindh circa 2015

Governor’s Rule will only work if Rangers, army can pursue the big fish, produce enough evidence to get convictions

There’s a joke in Sindh: It’s called the provincial government.

Before Asif Ali Zardari let loose his tirade against the army, and before his lieutenants launched a failed attempt at damage control; before all of this came the Press Release. Yes, THE Press Release. Or is it a charge sheet? Issued on June 11 from the Headquarters Pakistan Rangers (Sindh), the document details the salient points of the briefing that Director General Rangers Major General Bilal Akbar gave to the Apex Committee on terrorism and criminal activities in the province.

If you haven’t read the press release in full, please do so now. In fact, stop reading this column, google the press release, and read from the first word to the last. That’s how important it is. That’s how relevant it is to what’s unfolding now, and all that is going to happen in the days and weeks to come.

This document could be the turning point for Sindh, its inhabitants, and the joke that calls itself the government.

Here’s why: Karachi and the rest of Sindh is one big rotten mess because those who run the province, and the metropolis, are neck deep into this rot. They are the ones who have stitched the nexus between politics, crime and corruption. For decades this unholy nexus has strengthened itself by incorporating more and more filth into the system, spinning it around official corridors and depositing the noxious silt in powerful and hard to reach places. Sickness pervaded all over and the province groaned in pain and misery.

Enter the Rangers. The Apex Committee in Sindh had become a bit of a non-starter. It was infested with shady characters sporting crooked intents, ravishing the province with their greed, avarice and intensive incompetence. It was their kind that had spent billions of rupees to construct a palatial building for the provincial assembly while moaning lack of funds to build roads, provide clean drinking water and basic sanitation. Many of these crooks were directly responsible for the pillaging of Sindh. They should have been rotting in jail. Instead, they were now sitting arrogantly on the Apex Committee.

The press release by the Rangers hit these elected crooks like a stinging slap.



“An evil nexus of political leaders, civil servants and gang lords is involved in nurturing and sheltering organised crime and terrorism in Karachi,” said DG of Sindh Rangers. “Billions of rupees collected from extortion, land grabbing, targeted killings and rackets are flowing into the coffers of some top personalities of the Sindh province,” the press release quoted him as telling the Apex Committee. The press release put the volume of crime economy at over Rs230 billion a year!

According to the report in this newspaper, the DG Rangers said that besides heinous crimes, well-organised networks were running illegal marriage halls, illegal parking, match-fixing and beggar mafias. The funds from terrorist activities are distributed among the various factions of the criminal gangs of Lyari besides corrupt politicians and bureaucrats. Political parties, city district government, district administration, construction companies, estate agents and police officials are among the land-grabbing mafia. The statement said that all these work in a coordinated manner and most of them are patronised by a big political party of Karachi, while other political leaders and builders are also involved in this racket.

Sadly, there’s nothing much left for the imagination. But plenty left to chew over. Zardari’s outburst has laid bare a predicament that holds this country — and Sindh in particular — in its jaws: who will hold to account the rapacious elected elite within a broken system? The sickness on display in Karachi and the rest of Sindh, the blatant criminality and the abuse of power by the rulers and their henchmen, and the absolute disaster that the democrats have perpetuated on this land — all this is a harsh reminder that the system that we boast of is clearly failing in this province. In Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa it may be delivering to an extent, but in Sindh it has been mauled to death. What now?

The province and its metropolis have gone to hell, but Zardari wants to be left alone. Really? Is Sindh his jagir? Or that of the MQM for that matter? But who checks them if the electorate doesn’t? The executive and legislature are under their thumbs and the judiciary can only do so much and no more. Should then things be allowed to carry on as they are? Should rampant lawlessness and a complete breakdown of governance be accepted as a price we should happily pay for the privilege of voting once every five years?

Or given no other choice, should Article 234 of the Constitution kick in?

“If the President, on receipt of a report from the Governor of a province is satisfied that a situation has arisen in which the Government of the Province cannot be carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, the President may … by Proclamation, assume to himself, or direct the Governor of the Province to assume on behalf of the President, all or any of the functions of the Government of the Province…”

Yes, Governor’s Rule.

What then? Governor’s Rule has been imposed in Sindh in the past too without solving much. But this time it’s the Rangers in charge, backed by a determined army led by a general who appears to mean serious business. Governor’s Rule will work only if the Rangers and the army can smash the networks that run the deep criminal nexus detailed in the press release. Governor’s Rule will work only if the Rangers and the army can ruthlessly pursue the big fish, and produce enough evidence to get convictions in the courts of law. It will work if politicised criminality and criminalised politics can be culled like diseased animals, never to be resurrected again.

But if this is not possible, then I’m afraid the province of Sindh should curse its fate and resign to living and dying under a criminal and corrupt system run by unaccountable robber barons who will rule this land till perpetuity.

Or till there’s nothing left to rule.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 21^st, 2015.

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