Why Karachi bleeds

It seems as if ruling elite of this country no longer consider lives and property of citizens worth being protected.

LAHORE: When and will this madness ever end? As long as Pakistan’s ruling elite, their children and our bureaucracy have no stake in this country, restoration of the rule of law and protecting lives, will be the least of their priority. What have those, who claim to enjoy the mandate of the people of Karachi, delivered for Karachiites in the past five years, other than giving them miseries, body bags, extortion, kidnapping and shutter-down strikes?

These mercenaries have wrecked our economy and killed people in cold blood, so whose agenda is being served by closing down Karachi or other parts of Pakistan? If any purpose is to be served, it will only be when a total crackdown on criminals is carried out, and not on a pick-and-choose basis. Those who allow criminals to enter or exit the country and facilitate smuggling of weapons through thousands of containers that have gone missing, or those who protect them, are also responsible for the murder of innocent Pakistanis butchered in Abbas Town and in Quetta, as well as the rest of the country. As long as armed criminal gangs affiliated with political and religious parties and land and drug mafias are allowed to carry out their activities, sectarian outfits will continue to kill our people, destroy our economy and weaken Pakistan from within.

While men, women, children and the elderly were being slaughtered, the law-enforcement agencies and their political godfathers were too busy protecting the corrupt elite enjoying a private party, totally unaware of what was happening in the rest of the city. It seems as if the ruling elite and the bureaucracy of this country, no longer consider lives and property of citizens worth being protected. They seem to be worth no more than lambs or chickens slaughtered to satisfy their insatiable greed.

Malik Tariq Ali

Published in The Express Tribune, March 5^th, 2013.