Karachi’s plight

Although the Karachi operation has rekindled the hopes of an otherwise dismayed people of this mega city, there are still doubts about whether it will be able to completely restore peace.

Targeted killings, kidnappings, extortion and illegal encroachments of land have seen a dramatic fall and a majority of Karachiites have pinned their hopes on Rangers. Yet there are issues which need the immediate attention of the provincial administration.

One of these is the city’s never-ending stream of street crimes. The police seem too crippled to be able to deal with such issues. But this does not bother the provincial administration, which has proved to be quite insensitive to the problems being faced by citizens.

The absolute apathy and negligent attitude of the provincial government has forced the residents of Karachi to turn to the paramilitary force for the resolution of all their issues, as all other means appear to have been exhausted. From corruption to mismanagement, the PPP-led Sindh government has shown its ineptitude in all the ways it possibly can.

Unfortunately, the urban areas of the province are the ones which are the worst-affected. Once called the City of Lights, Karachi today presents a picture of a mutilated and shattered being that has been left to decay. From a battered public transport system to the absence of clean drinking water, the country’s largest city will require years of treatment to completely revive from its miserable state.

The provincial government should decide whether it wants to introduce police reforms in order to tackle street crimes effectively, or else the task should temporarily be assigned to the security agencies until a permanent resolution of this problem is reached.

In addition, what Karachi direly needs is a fully functional local government that can urgently resolve its pending issues and pre-empt those which may arise. Putting any hurdles in the way of the local bodies will only have adverse effects on the ruling party’s politics in the province.

A grand opposition alliance against the PPP is in the making and it will definitely make good use of such bad governance to topple the already beleaguered regime.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 18^th, 2016.