A cauldron of criminality

Imagine a scenario where dread, not hope, drives life, and crimes supersede dreams. Envision a setting in which sisters and mothers beg before notoriously powerful individuals for the freedom of abducted sons and brothers, who are being tortured and filmed. Visualise the body of an 8-year-old child with a shattered frontal bone, victim of a ballistic projectile fired by bandits. What may seem painful to imagine is the harsh reality that citizens of District Kashmore, Sindh, have been forced to endure. Though this situation may evoke empathy among every humane being, it has failed to stir the conscience of stakeholders, notably the state and the ruling elite.

This carefully cultivated climate of dread, ignorance and systematic subjugation - courtesy feudal and tribal warlords, a compliant bureaucracy and the political elite, including influential pirs and clergy - has nearly extinguished citizens' aspirations for development. Today, people desperately seek only peace from all stakeholders - beneficiaries of the chaos in the district. Nevertheless, the deep-seated interests of stakeholders continue to thrive at the expense of order in the district, leaving screams of injustice to fade into the wind. Amidst this hostile disregard from the state, the hapless citizens have almost resigned themselves to accepting the cultivators of chaos, bound by an implied treaty of tyranny, as a fait accompli. The toll of this fate is staggering, affecting 1.2 million people who call the district home.

For years, police officials pursued a policy of appeasement, befriending bandits and paying them substantial sums in exchange for promises to spare road traffic and citizens. Many police officials, with questionable capacity, downplayed the threat during their tenures, misrepresenting the situation as peaceful. This policy of burying their head in the sand not only empowered the bandits of the time but also encouraged other armed tribal groups and fugitives to resort to banditry, seeking to gain a formidable social stake and curry favour with officials. The terror sparked by the outlaws, compounded by the LAE's complicity, created an environment where local influencers - police, politicians, bureaucrats, nationalists, journalists, feudal leaders and clergy - were enticed to support the outlaws in exchange for advancing their vested interests. Furthermore, this situation has encouraged many self-styled civil society members, social activists and citizens - seeking cheap popularity and connections - to act as facilitators, informers, intermediaries and beneficiaries in the lucrative offense economy.

It is widely believed that, apart from the LAE's complacency, this patronage - coupled with the deep-rooted criminal, sociopolitical, tribal and economic connections and interests of their patrons - constrains the district's law enforcers from taking decisive action against the outlaws and their sponsors. Evidently, the incumbent LAEs command, like their immediate predecessors, appear reluctant, indecisive, unwilling, incapable, apathetic, selective or constrained in their kinetic actions. Perhaps it is these overlapping nexuses and implied treaties of tyranny among criminals, official and unofficial figures that force citizens to endure an unbearable fate in different manifestations, including the kidnapping-for-ransom industry.

Over the past few years, hundreds of citizens from the district and beyond have been held in captivity and tortured by the patronised bandits, only to be released in exchange for hefty ransoms paid through clandestine deals brokered by notoriously prominent locals and police officials. Nonetheless, no kidnapper or facilitator has ever faced arrest or legal consequences. As these lines are being written, over a dozen people remain in the captivity of bandits. Also, extortion notes and calls targeting the Hindu business community as well as thefts and bike and cellphone snatchings have become the norm.

Peace in Kashmore cannot be restored unless police officials who have strengthened banditry through appeasement and all local patrons of criminality are held accountable. However, the biggest question remains: will the state take a decisive action against its entrenched interests in the district?