Karachi looking back: The highs and lows of 2014

A year with a few highs, and quite a few lows


Creative Essa Malik December 30, 2014

The Experss Tribune takes a look back at all the highs and the lows that 2014 brought to Karachi.



January 2, 2014

Eight members of three families in Niaz Mallah, a village five kilometres away from Sujawal, have been struck by a possibly fatal disease, which has already claimed lives of three children. What worries them the most is that they don’t know what causes the disease, how to cure it or what to even call it

Read the full story here.

January 5, 2014 -

First time in the country


Russian marine animals make way to Karachi for country’s first dolphin show.

January 10, 2014 -

Karachi's iron man has fallen


City’s supercop Chaudhry Aslam dies in a bomb blast on Lyari Expressway

January 21, 2014 -

Anti-Polio campaign

Only one survives attack on polio team.

Read the full story here.



February 12, 2014

Eight schools run by the Village Shadabad Organisation in Johi taluka are imparting education on the rights of the body. In these schools, teachers take out two hours every week to teach minor students about sex education.

Read the full story here.

February 14, 2014 –

Razzakabad police bus attack

The doctors at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre found an application in police constable Abdul Nabi’s pocket which stated that the young officer had not received his salary for the last nine months. Over 30 other cops who were injured in the Razzakabad police bus attack had not been receiving their salaries due to ‘official issues’.

Read the full story here.

February 25, 2014 –

IDPs coming

Sindh cabinet decides to seal provincial border fearing inflow of IDPs.

Read the full story here.

February 27, 2014

NADRA begins the renewal process of proof of registration cards for refugees

Read the full story here



March 3, 2014



students in the province do not only feel on top of the world but they literally are after the announcement of the Outstanding Cambridge Learner Awards.

Read the full story here.

March 9, 2014 -

Tharparkar drought



was the death toll from malnutrition in Tharparkar on this day. The health officials denied at the time that the children were dying from malnutrition. Read the story here.

March 12, 2014 -

Targetting shoppers

When Lyari residents had learned to deal with the sounds of gunshots, Jhat Pat market attack brought a new level of fear in them. The attack claimed over 12 lives, mostly of women who were shopping for wedding clothes in the market.

Read the full story here.

March 18, 2014


Jewish trust goes to court to take back demolished Karachi synagogue land



April 7, 2014


The hunger of Thar takes 15 years of Mano Bheel’s life

April 9, 2014 -

Cup of tea



tea hotels that had shut down  due to violence in the city have reopened. Read the story here.

April 9, 2014 –

First female SHO

Sindh’s first female SHO takes charge of Clifton Police Station.

Read her story here.

April 14, 2014 -

Threats to heritage: Moen jo Daro

The only Water and Soil Investigating Laboratory of Pakistan in Moen jo Daro lies idle for the last 10 years. The laboratory, which was established during the era of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, to examine the underground water and soil at the ancient site of Indus Valley Civilisation, is deprived of all basic necessities, including the latest equipment.

Read the story here.

April 19, 2014 –

Tharparkar drought worsens



is the estimated number of peacocks who had died in April as the Tharparkar drought worsened. Read the story here.

April 19, 2014

Senior journalist Hamid Mir attacked in Karachi.

Read the full story here.

April 24, 2014 –

Sindh gets new division

Sindh bifurcates Hyderabad division, craving out the sixth division of the province ‘Bhanbhor’.

Read the full story here.

April 25, 2014


The lion finally falls on the eighth attempt on his life – SHO Shafiq Tanoli targeted and killed



May 10, 2014 -

Set a thief to catch a thief

Pakistan’s first criminology university, National University of Penal, Administrative and Security Sciences, may be illegal due to multiple irregularities in affiliation.

Read the full story here.

May 18, 2014 -

Making do
Khipro villages get solar panels to charge mobile phones



June 4, 2014 -

Matter of minutes: City panics after arrest of MQM chief Altaf Hussain in London



vehicles, including public buses and some cars, were torched by unidentified men soon after news broke that MQM chief Altaf Hussain was arrested in London, UK.

Read the full story here.

June 5, 2014 -

No work to show

is the utilisation of the development budget that the Sindh government had made in health and education departments even though it claimed to have utilised around 70 per cent of its Rs185 billion development budget for the year, 2013-14.

Read the full story here.

June 10, 2014 –

Airport attack
Karachi airport attack – a five-hour siege claims 29 lives



July 1, 2014 -

UTP status: Money can buy happiness in jail

Karateen is where a man’s destiny – in prison – is made. This place, where inmates are stalled and ‘checked’ on their first day in jail, defines the upcoming life as a prisoner. The new inmates have to show how heavy their pockets are; the more he or she has, the more benefits they receive.

Read the full story here.

July 31, 2014


Over 40 people drown at Sea View during Eid holidays



AUGUST 1, 2014 –

Risala policewoman


ASI Naseem Malik becomes the fourth woman officer to be inducted at male police stations in recent months in the city. Malik serves as a head muharrir at Risala police station. Read the full story here.

AUGUST 7, 2014 -

Back-to-school blues 


400 Green Town students go to school to find rubble

AUGUST 8, 2014 -

Money to save Thar children spent on sofas

An anti-corruption raid at Tharparkar’s District Health Office reveals misuse of a grant worth Rs50 million from the Sindh government that was meant to be spent ‘for nutrition and therapeutic needs’.  Over half of this amount – Rs26.4 million – was spent on the procurement of furniture.

Read the full story here.

AUGUST 9, 2014 -

Exposing embezzlement



is the amount the provincial tuberculosis (TB) control programme had shown as expense for the purchase of tissue papers for its programme officers.

Read the full story here.

AUGUST 10, 2014 -

Crime does pay: The lucrative business of SHO appointments



 

AUGUST 15, 2014 -

Tale as old as time: Property dispute older than Pakistan continues to date



per month is the rent that the tenants of Mai Bachi Compound in Lyari have been paying for the past several decades. This property has been in court over a dispute that goes back further than Pakistan.

Read the full story here.



SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

Professor Dr Muhammad Shakil Auj, the outspoken dean of Islamic Studies Faculty at the University of Karachi, was silenced by a single 9mm bullet in Gulshan-e-Iqbal.

Read the full story here.

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014 - FLOOD ‘14

Sindh heaves a sigh of relief as the floods subside in southern parts of Punjab.

Read the full story here.

All our flood updates can be found here.



OCTOBER 9, 2014 -

Black gold: The contraband that runs Karachi's wheels 

Smuggled Irani oil doing roaring business in Karachi. The contraband is sold at small roadside stalls or makeshift outlets in areas where there is a huge demand for the cheaper fuel.

Read the full story here.

OCTOBER 10, 2014 -

The poisoned chalice



is the number of people who died from drinking toxic moonshine liquor during the Eidul Azha holidays.

Read the full story here.

OCTOBER 14, 2014 -

Karachi jailbreak averted: Terrorists' bid to tunnel into jail foiled



metres was the length of the underground tunnel that a militant group was digging into Karachi’s main prison to stage a jailbreak that could have freed up to 100 dangerous militants from outlawed groups.

Read the full story here.

OCTOBER 19, 2014 -

Love for Benazir pulls women from all corners of Sindh towards Bilawal 

Read the full story here.


Sea View opens for public

OCTOBER 20, 2014 -

Bandits seal millions from Edhi head office


Abdul Sattar Edhi robbed

OCTOBER 27, 2014 –

MQM decides to launch movement for new provinces

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement demands formation of 20 new administrative units in Pakistan, saying the new administrative divisions will rectify the problems faced by the country’s common people.

Read the full story here.

OCTOBER 27, 2014 -

Cyclone Nilofar
Cyclone Nilofar expected to hit the city’s coast



NOVEMBER 2, 2014 -

Anjali or Salma?

The alleged forced conversion of a Hindu girl and her subsequent marriage with a Muslim man triggers protests from her community in Sukkur.

Read the full story here.

NOVEMBER 10, 2014


St Mary’s in Sukkur celebrates 125 years of education

NOVEMBER 11, 2014

A ‘tear’ of hope: The girl who would put the education dept to shame 

At a time when thousands of able-bodied students are out of school across Sindh and hundreds of schools are serving as guesthouse for the influential, one physically impaired girl - Aansoo Kohli - stands out as a beacon of hope, having converted her cattle pen into a school that has become overcrowded with students within a few months.

Read the full story here.

NOVEMBER 19, 2014 -

#NoMoreGhosts

Facebook campaign sparks revolution in education sector. The campaign exposes hundreds of prominent figures, including journalists, political and social activists and nationalists who were drawing salaries from public schools but never bothered to attend even once.

Read the full story here.

NOVEMBER 27, 2014 –

Madressa girls found 


Police recover 26 girls from Karachi house

NOVEMBER 28, 2014 -

For sniffer dogs, bombs are just one of their worries

Jenny, a Labrador, was a breeding dog whose puppies would be trained for induction into the unit as ‘operational staff’. She died of cancer.

Read the full story here.



DECEMBER 1, 2014 –

Ebola scare 

Karachi receives its first suspected Ebola patient from Liberia.

Read the full story here.

DECEMBER 8, 2014 -

Under attack: Militants know how to make the police 'immobile' 



is the number of police mobile vans at the disposal of Karachi’s 110 police stations. This year saw an unprecedented number of attacks on such vans as militants tried to make the law enforcers ‘immobile’.

Read the full story here.

DECEMBER 9, 2014 -

Operation successful 

Conjoined twins separated through surgery at AKUH.

Read the full story here.

DECEMBER 9, 2014

Marxist leader Sobho Gianchandani dies at 95.

Read the full story here.

DECEMBER 12, 2014


PTI shuts down Karachi as part of its city-by-city shutdown

DECEMBER 16, 2014 -

Bird's eye view

Princely Jets launch Karachi’s first helicopter ride.

Read the full story here.

DECEMBER 18, 2014 -

Burned out: Will someone rescue the fire department, please? 



of the 22 registered fire stations do not fit the description of a fire station by far.

Read the full story here.

DECEMBER 29

History repeats itself


Fire destroys 250 shops, 50 warehouses in timber market. First the fire department had no diesel, then it was water, then it was pipes, says the market association. Read the full story here.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 31st, 2014.

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