Karachi operation: Lack of clarity clouds goals

Karachi, which had been subjected to a chain of successive clean-up operations by military and police in the 1990s, is now bracing for another such crackdown in the next two days. If the parameters of the latest proposed operation, as reported in the press, are to be believed, it is not going to be a much different exercise.

The plan ‘partially’ unveiled by the federal interior minister on Wednesday makes the Rangers responsible for the operation with the police providing back-up support. The octogenarian chief minister has been entrusted with the job of supervising the proceedings. Rangers are already well-entrenched in this city since the 1990s, witnessing and allowing it to descend into anarchy.

The police that once showed its performance in cleansing operations commanded by Naseerullah Khan Babar and Rana Maqbool stands in near disarray – politicised beyond repair and demoralised after having lost no less than 90 of its officers and cops who dared to take part in these cleansing activities. And the grand old man of Pakistan Peoples Party presiding over the affairs of this province since 2008 has nothing to his credit except obeying the commands and orders of the family and friends of the man who had honoured him with the chief minister’s slot.

Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan did not go into the details of the parameters, targets and objectives of the latest but much trumpeted operation. He rather said that ‘some other important decisions’ taken during the two-day long deliberations could not be shared because of the sensitive nature of the issues involved.

However, in such operations law enforcement agencies are supposed to go after the anti-social elements and criminals but just any operation cannot take care of every crime listed in the Pakistan Penal Code or other penal laws. Unless one wants to evade the objectives and results, one has to be specific about a particular operation.

At present, Karachi is infested with a number of crimes. There are street crimes with people being deprived of their valuables on busy roads and in broad daylight. There are robberies and dacoities mostly targeting banks. There are car theft and snatching cases. There are target killings seen and believed to be motivated by political score-settling or sectarian frenzy. But what seems to be developing into a sort of industry are crimes dubbed ‘extortion’ and kidnapping for ransom. There is a common perception that street crimes and robberies don’t take place without the knowledge and connivance of those who are supposed to ensure their prevention. But it is a different story about extortion and kidnappings for ransom. While local political stakes may be very high in the extortion business, kidnappings for ransom are suspected as a means to generate money for another war at another place.

According to federal interior minister’s briefing, it will be a ‘targeted operation’ to lay hands on people involved in four categories of crime and they include ‘extortionists, target killers, kidnappers for ransom and terrorists.’ He also revealed that government agencies have already ‘clearly identified’ hundreds of people involved in these crimes.  At least five committees have been formed to play a direct or indirect role in this operation from the back benches. But one can well imagine how the pushes and pulls or the differences of opinions originating from these bodies will help cook up the results of this exercise.

But where lies the key to success or failure of the operation could be inferred from the words of Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan when he said “it is a new experiment as whenever in the past such operations were initiated in Karachi, one and the same political party was at the helm of affairs at the Centre as well as in Sindh.”

Once on the ground and sometimes before it takes off, such an operation creates its own heroes and villains. Remember the operation in the mid-1990s which had the bogeyman of Jinnahpur to its preamble? And during the proceedings of the Supreme Court in Karachi last week a report submitted by the federal government spoke about the existence of the hitherto unknown Mohajir Republican Army.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 6^th, 2013.