Daily Times editorial Aug 27, 2013

Karachi’s endless bloodletting Karachi’s tragic bloodletting shows no signs of abating. On Sunday, the death toll was about a dozen people, amongst them Maulana Akbar Saeed Farooqi, spokesman for the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat. The Maulana was reportedly returning from a rally of his party to protest against the sectarian violence in Bakkhar when motorcycle riding gunmen target killed him. The murder immediately sparked off tension in various parts of the city, with fears the incident could lead to further trouble on the sectarian front. The grisly count of discovered bodies for the day came to five more, of which two were identified as MQM workers. Two ANP workers were luckier when they survived a grenade hurled at an ANP leader’s house. If there was any good news on the day, but that too mixed, it was the return of Kucchi community families to their homes in Lyari after being forced to spend 75 days in tents near Badin for fear of their lives. Joy and trepidation lined the faces of the returning internally displaced persons, joy at being home and amongst relatives and friends, trepidation regarding what the future may hold. Lyari is far from peaceful, in line with the city as a whole. What, after al, afflicts the metropolis? In Karachi, Hobbes’ Leviathan appears to have found a home, in a war of each against all. The deadly protagonists, armed to the teeth and by now adept at using the urban jungle for targeted killings, include rival political parties, those in power and in the opposition, the terrorist Taliban, and criminal gangs. The erstwhile coalition allies in the previous PPP-led government, the MQM and ANP, were at daggers drawn throughout the five-year tenure of that government. Although a new, solely PPP government has been returned after the May 11 general elections, it does not seem anything has changed. The malign presence of the Taliban in Karachi is by now a foregone conclusion. In addition, the extortionist mafia has expanded beyond its original authors to include ‘freelance’ criminal gangs that have launched onto this turf in anticipation of easy pickings. Many of the targeted killings of ordinary citizens bearing no affiliation with any political party, may well be victims of ‘revenge’ for non-cooperation (refusal to pay bhatta or extortion money) by these gangs. The people of Karachi deserve better. If the new PPP government is going to show the same ‘benign’ neglect of the terrorist, political and criminal violence that has the city in its grip that was on display over the last five years, neither history nor the people of Karachi will forgive it. It is unfortunate that democracy has not been able to persuade rival political parties to sort out their differences in peaceful fashion, as behoves responsible political players. The Taliban threat has to be met head on. The criminal gangs, particularly extortionists, muggers and kidnappers have to be crushed ruthlessly under the law. All this is impossible without freeing the police of political interference, coordinating the civilian and military agencies for a common direction, and ensuring law breakers are brought to justice without fear or favour. Bleeding Karachi still awaits its ‘messiah’.