Issue: Making Peace

By Amir Zia
The News On Sunday
March 20, 2011

The real challenge for the government will be implementing the Interior Minister's promise of a crackdown on criminals regardless of their political affiliations.

President Asif Ali Zardari’s decision to ban the controversial Peoples' Amn Committee (PAC) operating from Lyari — one of the ruling party’s strongholds in Karachi — has again saved his alliance with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), but the thorny issue of ties between political parties and criminals remains far from over in the country’s industrial and commercial hub.

With militants mainly belonging to the ruling coalition — the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), the Awami National Party (ANP) and the MQM — locked in a bloody conflict on Karachi streets, there has been a renewed surge in cases of extortion, kidnappings for ransom, robberies and vehicle snatching, which has made this teeming city of more than 16 million people one of the most dangerous mega cities in the world.

In the second week of March alone, at least 30 people were shot and killed, which the police describe as intra-party rivalry. So far in the first two-and-a-half month of 2011, more than 125 people have died in tit-for-tat killings in the city. While majority of those killed were workers of various political parties, many ordinary citizens also became victims in this bloody conflict that claimed 748 lives in 2010 and 242 in 2009, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

But the unabated bloodletting remains only one part of Karachi’s grave law and order challenge. The bigger issue that emerged during the last couple of years is the growing influence of politically-connected criminals, who operate with impunity, affecting each and every stratum of the society.

“Criminals have been holding Karachi hostage,” said Saeed Shafiq, President of Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “From ordinary shopkeepers to big businessman and industrialists — all remain at the mercy of extortionists, kidnappers and bandits.”

A senior police officer, who requested not to be identified, said criminals operate under the cover of major political, religious and ethnic parties. “The Amn Committee members remain the newest entrant and are aggressively trying to expand influence beyond Lyari. The recent crime surge is the result of its activities.”

A number of victims are reluctant to report crime because they have little confidence in police and believe that criminals have political connections.

In recent months, cases of extortion and general crime soared especially in the old parts of Karachi including Joria Bazaar, Timber Market, Sarafa Bazaar, Boultan Market, Saddar — where not just retail, but wholesale markets and businesses are located, background interviews conducted with businessmen and shopkeepers revealed.

“They (criminals) send a receipt (parchi in Karachi’s lingo) — that could be a demand for a few thousand rupees or millions, according to the perceived size of the business,” said a shopkeeper in Timber Market requesting not to be identified. “If you fail to fulfill the demand, you get threats to your life and family. If you pay them once, the next demand will be bigger.”

Most of these markets are located in the close proximity of Lyari, from where most of the crimes emanate allegedly under the umbrella of PAC, founded by notorious gangster Rehman Dakait who was killed in a police encounter in 2009. But Dakait’s death did not deter his followers from expanding their network, which they claim remain focused on welfare work in line with its founder’s wish.

Zafar Baloch, a spokesman for the group, rejected allegations that the PAC was involved in crime. “We concentrate just on welfare work,” he claimed. “The Committee has Bhutto loyalists and party activists in its ranks. We remain loyal to PPP and its leadership.”

However, on the ground, “the PAC has effectively sidelined the local PPP Lyari leadership, encroached upon its offices and curtailed activities of PPP elected representatives in the area,” PPP sources alleged. PPP’s Member National Assembly from Lyari, Nabeel Gabol, was even threatened and stopped from visiting his constituency.

However, some of the PPP leaders, including Sindh Home Minister Zulfikar Mirza, viewed the group as an extension of the party.

“Amn Committee remains a strange mix of populism and crime,” admits a PPP local leader in Lyari, who also asked not to be named. “Sindh home minister even attended its rallies and called the committee members his boys. Probably, he saw them as a counterbalance to the MQM muscle power, which in itself was a wrong policy. The PPP never had a record of patronising criminals.”

The Amn Committee expanded its network rapidly in other parts of the city, pitting itself directly in confrontation with the MQM.

Haider Rizvi, an MQM MNA, said that it remains a flawed line of reasoning that the PAC, comprising “ruthless criminals, kidnappers and extortionists” posed a challenge to his party. “The MQM has an elected mandate and is a law-abiding party,” he said. “Amn Committee was no threat to us. This group, in fact, undermined the PPP mandate in Lyari and hijacked its structure over there.”

The MQM stiffened its stance against the PAC, threatening to quit the ruling coalition after Zulfikar Mirza made a public speech supporting the controversial group.

A PPP insider said that action against criminals regardless of their political affiliation was the key demand of the MQM in its recent negotiations with President Zardari. “In one of the meetings, the president expressed his shock that the Amn Committee had become such a big problem,” he said. “Some of the key PAC members, including Baba Ladla and Uzair Baloch, are wanted by police in criminal cases, but they roamed freely because of their political connections.”

However, PPP Sindh leaders remain divided about PAC’s status and its relations with their party — even barely a few hours before Interior Minister Rehman Malik announced a ban on this group in a joint press conference with MQM leaders in the wee hours of March 16.

While the PPP’s elected representatives from Lyari wanted action against the group, some other key members called it a “sister organization”.

“Amn Committee is a sister organisation, but is not formally affiliated with the party,” said PPP Sindh General Secretary Taj Haider, a few hours before Malik announced the ban. “All those affiliated with the committee are not criminals. Many of them are old PPP supporters.”

PPP sources say that many PAC members will be back to the PPP fold as it will formally cease to exist.

The real challenge for the government and the state institutions, however, will be implementing the Interior Minister Malik’s promise of a crackdown on criminals regardless of their political affiliations. This has never happened in Karachi, where even state institutions played one group against the other. Will they be able to turn a new leaf and work for the supremacy of the law? The experience offers little hope, but Malik’s high-sounding assurance, on behalf of Zardari, has certainly averted a political storm — at least for the time being — and probably provides a short relief to this troubled city.