Ranging further afield

Operations by the Rangers in Karachi in recent times have been criticised for their heavy-handedness but few would deny that they are — mostly — effective. Hitherto and under the PPP government they rarely strayed beyond the city limits but times, and masters, have changed. Rural Sindh is now an operational area for them and in the last week, in collaboration with the police, they have arrested 70 suspects in about a dozen raids, with those captured subsequently being handed over to the police. Among those to have their collars felt by the Rangers is a special assistant to the outgoing government, Ismail Dahiri, who happens to be an office-bearer of the PPP Nawabshah chapter, and who was found with five Kalashnikovs, as many grenades and a dozen magazines none of which are deemed essential to political activity. A leaked video showed the weapons.

Raids were widespread — Qasimabad, Nawabshah, Mirpurkhas, Thatta and Larkana among others — and all those arrested were allegedly involved in cases of murder, attempted murder, kidnapping for ransom and extortion among other crimes. It is further alleged that the weapons seized were to be used against political opponents.

Whatever may be one’s view on the deployment of Rangers beyond the Karachi city limits it is abundantly clear that their actions, which can only have been intelligence driven, have headed off yet more political violence. Party affiliations of those arrested have not been disclosed but in many ways that is immaterial. A senior PPP figure claimed that the Rangers had exceeded their mandate and they had only been given special powers for Karachi. His claim is clearly fatuous given the range of alleged crimes and weaponry recovered, as is his claim that the situation in rural Sindh is ‘under control.’ Nothing could be further from the truth, it is anything but under control and political thuggery and mayhem was afoot on the eve of the election. The Rangers say they were invited to assist by local administrations and we cannot gainsay this. The bottom line is there is no point in pussy-footing. If it needs a hammer it needs a hammer. Continue, please.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30^th, 2018.

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