City under siege

By Amir Zia

The News on Sunday
August 8, 2010

Presence of ethnic fault lines, sectarian and religious divide, political rivalries or bad governance -- what ails Karachi?

As being feared for the past several months, Karachi has again burst into violence and chaos. The killings of workers of various rival political and religious groups, which gained a fresh momentum over the last two months, finally led to the assassination of a Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) veteran Syed Raza Haider on August 2. The killing triggered a new wave of violence that claimed nearly 80 lives in just three days and left dozens of others wounded.

Armed bands of youngsters went on rampage setting ablaze vehicles, attacking shops and fuel stations and enforcing an unannounced strike in the city on the barrel of the gun. Most victims were ordinary citizens, who had no political affiliations, but targeted because of ethnic background. These victims were mostly daily-wage labourers, drivers, conductors and people doing small, odd jobs. Then there were those low-income group families, which were terrorised and some even saw their houses burnt because they lived in those parts where the other ethnic group remains in majority.

The focused media coverage, chain SMS messages, the word of mouth, propaganda of the rival parties, rumours as well as exaggerated accounts of brutalities -- as often happens in such cases -- only added fuel to the fire, plunging the city in a state of uncertainty and bringing its trade, business and industrial activity to a grinding halt.

The MQM had been quick to blame the Awami National Party (ANP) for the murder of its MPA. The ANP denied the charge and accused the MQM of fanning violence. Interior Minister Rehman Malik saw the outlawed Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan responsible for the murder of MQM's Shiite Muslim MPA. And amidst this overflow of information, claims and counter claims, Karachi continued to suffer. There was no sense of urgency seen on the part of the government to put an end to the lawlessness, while no political party took initiative to push the peace agenda and offer a healing touch. However, even the rivals agree that volatile Karachi needs immediate attention.

Faisal Sabzwari, a senior MQM leader and a provincial minister, called the situation "delicate". "The MQM hierarchy has not reacted to this assassination. We want to maintain peace, despite provocations, attacks and burning the houses of our people," he said. "But the problem is that the people who suffer violence do not listen to the local leadership. They just react. We are trying to contain the situation."

Shahi Syed, Sindh ANP chief, said that terrorism had never been part of his party's creed. "We know one thing, that among those dozens of people who died, there were only three or four ANP members. The rest were ordinary Pukhtoons."

The MQM says its slain leader Haider was an easy target because of the thin security cover. Haider represented one of the most volatile areas of the city -- Orangi Town -- where he also served as the sector in-charge, a key position in MQM's structure. Ethnically diverse and divided Orangi remains one of the biggest slums of Karachi. Both the MQM and ANP are at loggerheads in parts of this town to get an upper hand. Both accuse one another of trying to bring demographic changes not just in parts of Orangi, but also at other places as their preparations for the future elections.

ANP, which for the first time got two of its members elected to the provincial assembly from Karachi, says that this remain the main factor that antagonized the MQM. "The MQM sees ANP as a threat to its hegemony," Syed said. The MQM in its turn accuses ANP of patronising criminals and land grabbers.

In this barrage of allegations, indeed, the story of the unfolding tragedy in Karachi is not an easy one to tell. It is a grim complex situation in which ethnic rivalry remains just one manifestation of a bigger problem that has many grey areas. All these killings and the state of lawlessness, that descend on the city so often, have a pattern that keeps repeating itself. Though there are short and long periods of tense calm as well, the causes of this problem remain unaddressed. They range from the presence of ethnic fault lines in the city to that of sectarian and religious divide as well as political rivalries. The state's inability to resolve vital issues ranging from the long lingering transport problem to that of providing water, power or even a decent sewerage system -- all play their part in intensifying conflicts in Karachi.

A senior police official said requesting anonymity that the presence of the hard-core criminals in the ranks of major political parties remains one of the most troubling factors that emerged in recent years. "It acts as a catalyst in aggravating the situation."

Police in majority of the cases remain unable to take action against criminals because of their political affiliations. "Politicisation of crime and criminalisation of politics -- this has now become the main problem," the official said.

All the political parties do say they won't tolerate criminals in their ranks, but fail when it comes to match their words with action. No wonder, now for grabbing land, party flags are used in Karachi. The Sindh government's anti-encroachment drive crashed soon after takeoff in July because of the sharp differences within the allies of the ruling coalition.

To add to the problem of ethnic polarisation is the fact that many al Qaeda and Taliban operatives have slipped into the city in the wake of the military operation in the northern areas.

The MQM's stance that there has been growing "Talibanisation" in the city also proved a factor that led to sharpening the ethnic divide. ANP maintains that the issue of Taliban is being used to malign and target Pukhtoons in Karachi.

However, while a vast majority of Pukhtoons have nothing to do with extremists, security officials say that Taliban and their associates use Karachi to generate funds. From kidnapping for ransom to robberies and drugs and arms smugglings to extortion, huge amount of money is being raised every month by extremists from Karachi, they said.

In 2009 alone, media reports say that more than 160 militants were arrested in Karachi out of whom most were nabbed from Sohrab Goth and other Pukhtoon-dominated neighbourhoods. Police officials admit that even routine administrative issues have the potential to transform into ethnic confrontation.

Decades of political expediency and compromises by the successive governments have made situation messier in Karachi. Rather than going for rule of the law, institutions have gone for ad hoc measures -- often becoming a party themselves by propping one group against the other. The result has proved disastrous as not just state authority took a blow, but it resulted in complete lawlessness.

In every cycle of violence, the government avoided action against culprits and allowed wounds to fester. The city bounces back to normalcy not because of administrative measures, but by an inbuilt self-healing process, which offers only short-term relief. And between these extremes of temporary peace and bouts of violence, there are genuine fears of balkanisation of this city, which is awash with both illicit and licensed weapons. This remains a possibility because of state's inability to resolve its contradictions and establish its writ and rule of the law. The writing is very much on the wall, but rulers fail to read it. In this land of the pure, political expediency reigns supreme.