Uzair Baloch and Baba Ladla: a relationship of needs, wants and motives

KARACHI:

The ongoing unrest in Lyari may have exposed the growing differences between Peoples Amn Committee (PAC) chief Uzair Baloch and notorious gangster Baba Ladla but this relationship was rocky from the start.

A minor clash between the Lyari gangsters and the PAC surfaced soon after Rahman Baloch alias Rahman Dacoit was killed in encounter on August 9, 2009. Senior political activists and the gangsters held long discussions and eventually agreed to make Baba the commander of the militant wing while Uzair would be the political face of the Amn committee, who will talk to Pakistan Peoples Party leaders, the local administration and various communities in the area, The Express Tribune learnt.



“Baba approved Uzair’s name as the chief of the PAC but not as the sardar,” disclosed a senior leader who was close to the PAC’s affairs. “Baba has never been fond of popularity or political fame,” he pointed out, adding that Baba agreed to this arrangement on the condition that his ‘matters’ and his men will not be bothered.

“He [Baba] would always overshadow Uzair in his meetings and, sometimes, he misbehaved with him, warning him to keep his bloody politics away from his affairs,” recalled another senior political worker.

Baba always restricted himself to his “own business”, he said, explaining that his business included drug deals, gambling and kidnappings. “He would always take out his anger on Uzair and Zafar Baloch when his men were detained and killed by the
law-enforcement agencies.”

According to men close to the PAC, there were several issues that caused major differences between Uzair and Baba, such as the killings of Baba’s men and clashes with the Kutchis. These differences were at their peak when the clashes with the Kutchis erupted in the end of June.

Before the killings of Baba’s two closed aides — Alok Gawadri and Zubair Wehshi — Baba was never in favour of clashes with the Kutchi Rabita Committee. “It was Gawadri’s killing that compelled Baba to reconsider his inclination towards the KRC,” claimed a senior office bearer of the KRC. Gawadri was killed on December 12, 2011, and Wehshi on February 13, 2012.

“Baba always wanted peaceful ties with the KRC as he knew that Kutchis lived in areas he dominates,” he added. “But after these two killings Baba was pushed to start fighting the KRC.”

According to a man who is close to the two, the recent differences between Uzair and Baba began over the issue of Uzair’s escape from Lyari. “Baba directed Uzair not to leave his men as the entire neighbourhood considered him to be the sardar [leader]. But Uzair left without taking Baba into confidence.”

The bomb blast outside a football stadium in Lyari on August 7 also worsened the already strained relationship between Baba and Uzair. “Baba Ladla was the original target of that blast, not MPA Javed Nagori,” claimed a social and political activist in Lyari, adding that it was the first time the two had reached the point where they wanted to kill each other. “It was unfortunate for Uzair that his ‘rival’ survived.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 30^th, 2013.