The most unfortunate thing is that one sees no honest effort on part of the Sindh government to stop the violence.
JUBAIL, SAUDI ARABIA: On July 17, President Asif Ali Zardari got personally involved in sorting out differences between warring factions of Karachi. He met representatives of the People’s Aman Committee and the Katchi Rabita Committee and managed to get an agreement from both to do whatever they could to stop the ongoing bloodshed in Karachi. The president seemed so confident about the success of this patch up that he later announced that Bilawal Bhutto would contest the next election from the Lyari seat.
As the past few days have shown, even a personality as powerful as the president turned out to be wrong in his assessment of the city’s situation. The rivalry and violence between various gangs in Lyari has spiralled completely out of control and engulfed several surrounding localities. Till August 19, more than 70 people had been killed — all in the span of a few days — most of their bodies found in gunny bags scattered all over the city.
Clearly, this is not now a turf war between criminal gangster or drug peddlers but something far more sinister. By most accounts, it has taken an ugly ethnic colour as well and clearly all this cannot happen without the support of the city’s major power brokers. The mostly non-local politically-recruited police and the rangers are not showing any intention of stepping in and helping the people of the city.
What is perhaps the most unfortunate thing of all is that one sees no honest effort on the part of the Sindh government to stop this vicious cycle of violence. Have we made a wrong choice by making these politicians our rulers, or is this a third party trying to make us think that our politicians are inept?
Masood Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, August 21st, 2011.
