Turf war: Lyari scooped out of troubled waters by police

President takes notice and police fan out to stop the gangsters.

KARACHI:

About 800 families from the Katchi areas of Lyari that fled the unrest in the area returned on Monday, saying that they felt safer as President Asif Ali Zardari had now deployed the police.

The Katchi Rabita Committee’s Daud Katchi told The Express Tribune that almost all the families went to stay with relatives in Jatoi Para, Singar Para and Hingorabad. “The Lyari police and government should show their writ so that the public can live in peace and without fear,” he said. “There is no need to call in police from the outside. A single police station’s force is enough to handle these gangsters if they work honestly.”

Residents distributed sweets in celebration of their homecoming. We know that these people are not going to get better, they said. “There is no telling when our happiness will get snatched away again.”

The president’s attention jump-started the police into action against lawlessness in Lyari. The president took notice of an attack on a KRC protest rally on Mauripur Road on Saturday.

Karachi chief of police Saud Mirza, south zone DIG Shaukat Ali Shah, Lyari SP Pervez Iqbal Bhatti and other officials visited the violence-hit parts.

A committee of the Katchi community, defunct Peoples Amn Committee (PAC), the government and police is also reportedly being put together to keep an eye on Lyari. A police check-post will be set up at a plot near Khadda Market where the violence seems to originate. A plot there has been claimed by three different groups - the KRC, PAC and one of the Deobandi school of thought.

Nearly 150 police commandos have been deployed in the troubled areas. SP Pervez Iqbal Bhatti told The Express Tribune that peace has been completely restored. Former PAC president, Zafar Baloch claimed, however, the whole situation was a sham. He said that Lyari had already been peaceful and that it was all KRC propaganda against the PAC.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 19^th, 2011.