Rising tensions

Even though the wave of killings that caused rivers of blood to flow through the streets in Karachi has stopped, the threat of more violence seems to lurk just around the corner. Thinly veiled threats have been made by furious MQM leaders as tensions between them and the PPP rise to new heights. The future for the people of Karachi right now does not look very promising at all.

While the Sindh government has restored the pre-2001 commissionerate system and restructured the police set-up, the MQM has made it clear that it bitterly opposes any change in the local government. There have also been other issues that have risen to the surface, as a particularly bitter war begins between the two former allies. In an angry press conference, a senior member of the MQM Rabita committee, Anees Qaimkhani, accused the PPP of having the telephones at its headquarters disconnected and alleged that the party was attempting to form an alliance with the MQM-Haqiqi. A senior minister of the Sindh government, Dr Zulifiqar Mirza, has openly stated he has indeed met Haqiqi leader Afaq Ahmed, and that he saw nothing wrong with this.

The problem in the context of Karachi goes well beyond that of a simple difference in opinion between two major political parties. The language and tone now being used suggests that the kind of patch-ups we have seen in the past may be impossible this time round. There is, in such a situation, a very real fear of Karachi being plunged into the kind of orgy of violence it saw several times during the 1990s. A rather ominous reference has been made by Qaimkhani to those periods. The bitter attacks made by the MQM on President Asif Ali Zardari and his party add to the tensions hanging over our largest city, with no immediate signs of salvation in sight. Like boxers in the ring, the major players in Karachi stand in their respective quarters with gloves raised. We can only hope a clash can be prevented before further injury is inflicted on an already traumatised city and its people. One way should be to seek a dialogue on the already-controversial and rush revival of the commissionerate system and the old police law.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 12^th, 2011.