Startling remarks

Killing enemies has just become politics by other means in Karachi.

The remarks made by the director-general of the Rangers, Major-General Ejaz Chaudhry, who told the Supreme Court, which was taking suo motu notice of the violence in Karachi, that the situation in the city was worse than that in Waziristan, are quite startling. The general went on to blame the political parties of the city, claiming that they were instigating the violence and would then provide sanctuary to the target killers, who quite clearly were operating because of their patronage and protection. Of course, there is a greater urgency to investigate what the head of the Rangers has said because his force is one of the prime law-enforcement agencies in the city, for which the provincial government spends billions every year, and quite clearly its effective working is being hampered because it is not able to arrest those who it knows are involved in the killing and the violence.

What the Rangers director-general has said only reinforces the point that more or less all of Karachi’s major political parties, and even some religious groups, are involved in the violence, though publicly none of them owns up to even an iota of involvement. Killing enemies has just become politics by other means in the metropolis. Left helpless in all of this are the law-enforcement agencies. The police do not have the power to take on the entrenched political interests and so can do precious little to stem the violence. So long as they do not have that power, Karachi will either continue to burn or there will be a groundswell of support for bringing the military in, to control the situation. Neither option is ideal, or even acceptable.

This is where the Supreme Court comes in. It is possibly the only institution in the country with the power and authority to take on the political parties and empower the police. The law enforcement agencies must be convinced that they will not suffer dire consequences simply for doing their jobs. If the court hauls up the leaders of the political parties and holds them accountable, and then purges the police of political appointees, it could make all the difference in Karachi. The police must have a free hand in identifying and arresting those responsible for the violence, no matter what their political affiliation.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 9^th,  2011.