The operation was no small mopping up of criminals: on its first day on January 17, it netted over 400 people in pre-dawn raids in Orangi, with the help of 700 Rangers personnel. When asked, a brigadier of the force said: “The paramilitary unit comes under the [federal] ministry of interior and no operation could be launched without the ministry’s knowledge. Everyone, including the home ministry, is consulted and obviously involved.”
Rehman Malik’s other observation was a give-away: he did not condemn the operation carried out by the Rangers ‘on their own’, knowing full well that Rangers are commanded by in-service army officers. He, however, launched into the time-tested but patently absurd theorem that a “third party” was involved in a sinister plan to kill the three main political stakeholders of Karachi: the PPP, MQM and ANP. When a Pakistani bureaucrat or politician names a ‘third party’, he usually means the ‘foreign hand’, which is a cipher for the evil trio of India, Israel and the United States.
He then went on to deliver the following gem: “It doesn’t matter if they are from South Africa or Bajaur or Balochistan, they all have the same agenda: to break down Pakistan, to destabilise us.” There will be a loud guffaw in many capitals of the world on this, as it is Pakistan which is globally recognised as terrorism’s ground zero where not-so-secretly ‘state-patronised’ terrorist groups train local and foreign killer to destabilise neighbourhood states.
Few residents of Karachi will have believed what the PPP ministers have said, but they all think the operation was good for the city as it removed the doubt of partiality of the operation being in favour of one side or the other. The January 26 meeting of the PPP, MQM and ANP will take stock of the casualties; and the side that has lost least during the operation will be accused of having launched a ‘deniable’ operation. The ANP has already declared that it would prefer a clean sweep of the killers through a military operation. Will the PPP and the MQM, too, opt for that path?
The truth is that all three parties are deeply intertwined with the weaponised mafias of the city. This was made unavoidable as a part of the give-and-take arrangement with the underworld, a well-known phenomenon all over the world where empowerment is sought outside the parameters of law. The stress suffered by the stakeholders from the latest ‘deniable’ Rangers operation has been felt by all three parties. The MQM is too disciplined to make a rash expression of pain after the Orangi operation. The PPP, however, has clearly shown signs of stress, not only in the complaint registered by Home Minister Mirza but also by one of its ministers, Nabeel Gabol (who, on January 21, was reported to have taken back his resignation).
The MQM feels it can sort things out through a meeting with Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, much reassured by the top-level PPP leadership in Islamabad. The ANP-PPP relationship is holding out better than the PPP-MQM relationship. The only faction which feels left out is PPP Sindh, led by the chief minister. Party leader Asif Ali Zardari, on the other hand, is not only firmly in the saddle as far as the party is concerned but also has the larger picture of what is going on in Karachi. He knows that the demand for governor’s rule will gather strength as time passes and the killers of Karachi continue to have the run of the city. Finally, someone other than the elected politicians will have to sort out the mess, and we all know who that someone is. Hence, the Orangi operation.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 22nd, 2011.
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