Daily Times Editorial Dec 27, 2012

Karachi’s unending woes Sectarian and targeted killings continue daily to extract a high price in Karachi. On Tuesday, Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ) leader Maulana Aurangzeb Farooqi was attacked by armed gunmen on motorcycles. The Maulana received a bullet in his leg and survived, but four police guards and two of his private guards were killed. The attack was so sudden and swift that the guards had no time to retaliate. Inevitably, the attackers got away. Partly in retaliation, partly business as usual in the city, another 15 people were killed in various parts of the metropolis. The ASWJ supporters came out in protest after the attack on their leader, resorting to aerial firing at the hospital where he had been taken and elsewhere torching at least two vehicles and clashing with the police and Rangers rushed to control the rampaging crowds. Tension spread and caused the city’s markets to close and transport to disappear off the roads. The ASWJ has called for a strike in Karachi today and mourning throughout Sindh. Their spokesman Maulana Saeed Akbar demanded security for his group’s leaders, otherwise they would launch a long march on January 11 over the continued killing of Deobandi leaders. There is an emerging pattern to the mayhem in Karachi, although many questions remain unanswered. The preferred modus operandi of the gunmen appears to be using motorcycles as a highly manoeuvrable and swift means of sudden attacks and ambushes and then speeding away through the densely packed streets of the city before they can be identified or apprehended. Some of the victims of the fallout of the attack on Maulana Farooqi may well be retaliatory sectarian attacks, particularly if the victims were Shias. That sets the parameters of one of the many layers of havoc being wreaked on Karachi. But that is not the whole or even a sufficient explanation for the endemic violence that has the city in its grip for some time and which shows no signs of going away. To the sectarian wars of Karachi must therefore be added the ethnic divide, jihadi terrorists, land and criminal mafias, and just plain criminals taking advantage of the disturbed conditions. Some of the bodies recovered in the streets and alleys of Karachi on almost a daily basis show signs of torture before being killed and dumped. Clearly these are signs of extremely cruel targeting killings of rivals of one kind or another. The gentle, cosmopolitan Karachi of days past has become a distant and hazy memory. Unfortunately the response of the authorities is hardly anything to hold up as an example of responsible governance and the will to tackle a situation that has brought the industrial and commercial capital of the country virtually to its knees. The political turf wars amongst ostensible allies in the coalition government fields armed militias that seem to be engaged in an all-out struggle of each against all. The sectarian outfits, like the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, received a new lease of life by reinventing themselves under new names and banners such as the ASWJ. The ‘ban’ on them therefore exists only in the breach. A disturbed law and order situation offers a heaven-sent opportunity to proliferating mafias and criminals to ply their deadly trade at the expense of the citizen. Having argued many times before in this space that the ultimate responsibility for handling and improving Karachi’s situation lies squarely with the political parties and leaders that are part of the ruling coalition in Sindh, and having been disappointed at their paralysis and/or indifference, there seems little point in reiterating that unless the major and relatively minor coalition allies come together on a compact to relieve Karachi of its unending woes, there cannot be any chance of relief for the hapless citizens of the city. With elections looming, the fears about other parts of the country assailed by terrorism, such as Peshawar, not being able to conduct elections peacefully must also apply to the largest city of the country with its layered complexities. Are the ruling coalition partners in Sindh listening?