Karachi's lawlessness

A 27-year-old shop employee in Liaquatabad refused to give up his motorcycle keys to two armed robbers on Sunday and was shot in the head for it, in front of a 15-year-old colleague held at gunpoint in the corner of the shop. He is, by local count, the 50th citizen killed this year for resisting a robbery in this city. That milestone was reached with four months still left on the calendar, and it sat alongside two policemen shot in an unrelated robbery the same day and a third officer who died of wounds inflicted a day earlier.

None of this is a stray weekend. Well over 30,000 street crime cases were registered across Karachi in just the first six months of this year. The police themselves have admitted the true number is higher because many victims never bother filing a report. Karachi's police leadership continues to point to comparative statistics showing a decline against last year. But set against tens of thousands of registered incidents and a killing every few days, the improvement being advertised does not match what residents are living through.

Lawlessness of this scale does not sustain itself on its own. It survives on illegal weapons that continue to circulate freely despite periodic crackdowns, and on an incompetent police force stretched thin. It survives on the desperation of a city where unemployment and drug addiction push young men toward armed robbery as a livelihood, and on a criminal justice system that fails to punish them even when they are caught. The Sindh government and Karachi police owe the public an honest account of why lawlessness of this scale persists despite the resources and operations they claim credit for.