Lofty goals: NGOs want to rid Karachi of legal as well as illegal weapons

Seminars and peace rally will be part of the International Disarmament Week from Oct 24.

KARACHI: Hoping to play their role in bringing down the number of “targeted killings” in the city, multiple nongovernmental organisations have decided to campaign for deweaponisation of the entire city as it marks the International Disarmament Week from October 24 to 30.

“We have been monitoring the law and order situation in the city for the past four years, and targeted killings in Karachi claim more lives than suicide attacks that take place throughout the country,” said National Social Forum’s (NSF) president Khursheed Anwar. The NSF wants to rid the city of legal as well as illegal weapons.

According to rough estimates, the city is currently home to nearly 2 million weapons, whereas around 20 million illegal weapons are being circulated throughout the country. The CID has records of around 50,000 licensed weapons carriers in the city. The Express Tribune had earlier reported that there are principally four land routes that are used to smuggle weapons into the city. These include the Super Highway, Indus Highway, National Highway and the RCD Highway. However, other routes, particularly those near the Sindh, Balochistan and Punjab border region are also used to transport illegal weapons.

Anwar says that the 9mm pistol is the most commonly used weapon in targeted killings in Karachi. He also lamented that the Sindh Assembly had recently passed a resolution regarding illegal weapons, and added that NSF wanted to “clean” the city from all kinds of weapons.

The NSF president also criticised political parties for “creating ethnic divide” among the people, which was aggravated by their use of weapons. The group’s general secretary, Iqbal Jameel, added that political parties have a large cache of legal and illegal weapons in their offices.

Governments have launched “search operations” in Sohrab Goth and other areas, but they were either politically motivated or targeted at a specific community, claimed Anwar. The very first search operation in Sohrab Goth did not yield any results because the police had already informed arms smugglers in the area about impending raids. He condemned the present government for allotting a special quota of Kalashnikov permits to MPAs.

Jameel told The Express Tribune that they will organise workshops against weapons at educational institutions, and hang deweaponisation posters across the city. A “peace rally” will also be organised to create awareness.

Farhat Parveen, chief executive of Now Communities, said that deweaponisation was the need of the hour as “around 13 people are being killed in Karachi on average every day”.

During a meeting in the first week of October, IG Police Fayyaz Laghari had decided that law enforcers would seek a Rs30 million Integrated Ballistic Identification System (IBIS), which will help it keep track of transactions taking place at arms dealerships. Constables will be assigned to collect spent bullets used during the trial of weapons from every arms dealer, and the shells will be sent to the forensic division for record-keeping.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 23^rd, 2012.