By Amir Zia
The News
Monday, July 22, 2013
The credit of Lyari’s predicament goes to none other than the Pakistan People’s Party, which allowed gangsters to seize control of a few of its unflinching support bases in the city where its flag had been fluttering high since the days of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the early 1970s
For the past several years now, Lyari has existed as a living tragedy and a festering wound of Karachi – the country’s commercial and financial capital. It is a place where gangsters rule, gun battles rage, and crime and politics often walk hand-in-hand. It is a safe haven for extortionists, gunrunners, drug peddlers, kidnappers and criminals, but a living hell for law-abiding citizens.
As rival gangs fight pitched battles, residents are forced to huddle in their houses for days – sometimes stretching to weeks. Here a child often gets killed by a stray bullet. A man loses his life while returning home from work. A woman out for grocery shopping sustains multiple gunshots and dies on the roadside as armed men indiscriminately spray bullets with automatic weapons in a crowded market, killing several unsuspecting civilians. They all are just faceless numbers in the growing list of victims of the organised criminal violence that has consumed hundreds of lives in this area since 2008 when its steep slide into lawlessness began with the country’s return to democracy.
The real life tales of atrocities and crimes committed here are harrowing. When a group of gangsters finds the ringleader of a rival gang, they cut his body into small pieces and record this barbarity on video, which is then circulated on the internet – perhaps as a warning to all friends and foes. These video clips are not for the faint-hearted.
In the latest twist to the ongoing bloody saga, hundreds of families from the Kutchi community have been forced to abandon their homes where they had lived for decades in harmony with other ethnic groups. They have now become internally displaced persons from the conflict zone of Karachi, waiting for help and justice in places like Thatta and Badin. The bullet-riddled walls and houses damaged by grenades fired from rifles equipped with launchers bear testimony to Lyari’s prevailing lawlessness.
The area, once the hub of Karachi’s democratic, progressive and politically-conscious forces and known for its football crazy youth, budding boxers, tenacious cyclists and tough bodybuilders and weight-trainers, is now only a ghost of its past.
Communities that lived here in harmony for decades are now at loggerheads. One law-abiding Baloch youngster, who once had a shop in a Kutchi-dominated area, cannot operate his business from there because of the ethnic tensions. He is now looking for work. A Makrani physical trainer, whose family has lived here for generations, is now looking to rent a place outside Lyari as his 13-year-old daughter stands traumatised because of the frequent and prolonged gunfire and bouts of violence. She is too afraid to go to school or even step out of her house. These fleeting images are not even the tip of the tragedy that has been unfolding in Lyari. One has to be a Lyari-ite to know the trauma and the ordeal of living there.
And guess who is largely responsible for this sorry state of affairs? Not some military dictator like General Ziaul Haq against whom dwellers of this locality fought for democracy. Not those shadowy ‘state institutions’, which are accused of hatching all the dark conspiracies and committing black deeds against the democratic forces. This time around, the credit of Lyari’s predicament goes to none other than the Pakistan People’s Party, which allowed gangsters to seize control of a few of its unflinching support bases in the city where its party flag had been fluttering high since the days of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the early 1970s.
But sadly this is not the era of the Bhuttos – a signboard the PPP’s current stalwarts continue to cash in on even today. Imagine Zulfikar Ali Bhutto or Benazir Bhutto politically surrendering their support base to some controversial ‘peace committee’. Imagine any one of them abandoning party cadres or local leaders in favour of gangsters in an attempt to counter the muscle power of the MQM that ironically was a coalition partner when this twisted policy was formulated and implemented by the close coterie of President Asif Ali Zardari led by his student-life buddy Zulfikar Mirza.
Who would have thought in their wildest dreams that any of the senior Bhuttos would have allowed Lyari gangsters to nominate candidates for national and provincial assembly seats on PPP tickets? But under the new PPP the slogan ‘democracy is the best revenge’ has practically transformed into something like ‘revenge from democracy’.
Perhaps it would be unjust to blame some of the PPP’s veterans – from Raza Rabbani to Taj Haider and Makhdoom Amin Fahim to Syed Khursheed Shah – for choosing this forbidden path. These gentlemen are perhaps hostage to their circumstances and lack intellectual and moral courage to speak the truth. Their crime remains that of silence and toeing the party line even when criminals were being patronised and allowed to seize control of Lyari under the PPP flag.
All through the 2008-2013 term of the PPP’s rule, its lawmakers from Lyari could not even enter their own constituencies and the party cadre and local leaders were systematically forced to take a backseat. The so-called party hardliners, who wanted to keep their coalition partner – the MQM – on a tight leash banked for this on gangsters, who established a state within the state. This carrot-and-stick policy meant for the MQM played havoc with the city.
Lyari gangsters have become a curse for traders, shopkeepers and businesspeople. They have no choice but to dole out protection money to keep their shutters open, especially in some of the old commercial areas of the city. If anyone refuses to pay, the price is often a whizzing bullet or a hand-grenade attack. There were unprecedented lockout of businesses and shops as traders and shopkeepers protested during the PPP’s last stint in power – to no avail.
Organised networks of criminals, fanning out of Lyari, routinely deprive citizens of their cash, valuables and mobile phones in the main business and commercial districts as well as in the so-called upscale neighbourhoods. The law enforcers just watch.
The demoralised police force lacks resources, including sophisticated weapons, communication equipment and fuel and is in a state of inertia because of political pressures. No wonder, its senior officers, deployed at Lyari’s four police stations, often first take permission from gangsters before moving in their respective localities and try to remain on their right side for fear of their lives. Political expediency and opportunism never allow the other law-enforcement agencies, including the paramilitary rangers, to opt for an even-handed crackdown.
In Pakistan’s largest city, this could be the worst possible publicity statement for the PPP, which instead of giving better health care, education and jobs to the residents of its loyal support base, gave them the rule of mafias, guns, drugs, lawlessness and violence.
It was a mistake to think that the PPP would learn from the electoral thrashing it received in the May 2013 elections and mend its ways and indulge in some serious rethinking and self-criticism. In the only province where the party managed to form government, Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah – soon after taking oath – went straight to a reception hosted by the theoretically banned, but practically operating Aman Committee. It was his public statement on what lay ahead for Karachi.
The PPP’s new term in Sindh has started with a spike in killings and violence in Lyari as authorities continue to blatantly ignore crimes committed by gangsters, many of whom now carry the party tag. In fact they have successfully managed to establish their domain in the locality.
As violence and lawlessness rages in Lyari, the authorities have been holding negotiations and brokering deals between warring groups. Such shameful strategies, which further undermine the law and the writ of the state, can only be applied in Pakistan where – rather than bringing lawbreakers, criminals and terrorists to justice – the authorities negotiate with them.
Is there any hope left for Karachi? I am afraid not – at least not under the current PPP government and its existing mindset, which refuses to learn and unlearn from its mistakes.
The News
Monday, July 22, 2013
The credit of Lyari’s predicament goes to none other than the Pakistan People’s Party, which allowed gangsters to seize control of a few of its unflinching support bases in the city where its flag had been fluttering high since the days of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the early 1970s
For the past several years now, Lyari has existed as a living tragedy and a festering wound of Karachi – the country’s commercial and financial capital. It is a place where gangsters rule, gun battles rage, and crime and politics often walk hand-in-hand. It is a safe haven for extortionists, gunrunners, drug peddlers, kidnappers and criminals, but a living hell for law-abiding citizens.
As rival gangs fight pitched battles, residents are forced to huddle in their houses for days – sometimes stretching to weeks. Here a child often gets killed by a stray bullet. A man loses his life while returning home from work. A woman out for grocery shopping sustains multiple gunshots and dies on the roadside as armed men indiscriminately spray bullets with automatic weapons in a crowded market, killing several unsuspecting civilians. They all are just faceless numbers in the growing list of victims of the organised criminal violence that has consumed hundreds of lives in this area since 2008 when its steep slide into lawlessness began with the country’s return to democracy.
The real life tales of atrocities and crimes committed here are harrowing. When a group of gangsters finds the ringleader of a rival gang, they cut his body into small pieces and record this barbarity on video, which is then circulated on the internet – perhaps as a warning to all friends and foes. These video clips are not for the faint-hearted.
In the latest twist to the ongoing bloody saga, hundreds of families from the Kutchi community have been forced to abandon their homes where they had lived for decades in harmony with other ethnic groups. They have now become internally displaced persons from the conflict zone of Karachi, waiting for help and justice in places like Thatta and Badin. The bullet-riddled walls and houses damaged by grenades fired from rifles equipped with launchers bear testimony to Lyari’s prevailing lawlessness.
The area, once the hub of Karachi’s democratic, progressive and politically-conscious forces and known for its football crazy youth, budding boxers, tenacious cyclists and tough bodybuilders and weight-trainers, is now only a ghost of its past.
Communities that lived here in harmony for decades are now at loggerheads. One law-abiding Baloch youngster, who once had a shop in a Kutchi-dominated area, cannot operate his business from there because of the ethnic tensions. He is now looking for work. A Makrani physical trainer, whose family has lived here for generations, is now looking to rent a place outside Lyari as his 13-year-old daughter stands traumatised because of the frequent and prolonged gunfire and bouts of violence. She is too afraid to go to school or even step out of her house. These fleeting images are not even the tip of the tragedy that has been unfolding in Lyari. One has to be a Lyari-ite to know the trauma and the ordeal of living there.
And guess who is largely responsible for this sorry state of affairs? Not some military dictator like General Ziaul Haq against whom dwellers of this locality fought for democracy. Not those shadowy ‘state institutions’, which are accused of hatching all the dark conspiracies and committing black deeds against the democratic forces. This time around, the credit of Lyari’s predicament goes to none other than the Pakistan People’s Party, which allowed gangsters to seize control of a few of its unflinching support bases in the city where its party flag had been fluttering high since the days of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the early 1970s.
But sadly this is not the era of the Bhuttos – a signboard the PPP’s current stalwarts continue to cash in on even today. Imagine Zulfikar Ali Bhutto or Benazir Bhutto politically surrendering their support base to some controversial ‘peace committee’. Imagine any one of them abandoning party cadres or local leaders in favour of gangsters in an attempt to counter the muscle power of the MQM that ironically was a coalition partner when this twisted policy was formulated and implemented by the close coterie of President Asif Ali Zardari led by his student-life buddy Zulfikar Mirza.
Who would have thought in their wildest dreams that any of the senior Bhuttos would have allowed Lyari gangsters to nominate candidates for national and provincial assembly seats on PPP tickets? But under the new PPP the slogan ‘democracy is the best revenge’ has practically transformed into something like ‘revenge from democracy’.
Perhaps it would be unjust to blame some of the PPP’s veterans – from Raza Rabbani to Taj Haider and Makhdoom Amin Fahim to Syed Khursheed Shah – for choosing this forbidden path. These gentlemen are perhaps hostage to their circumstances and lack intellectual and moral courage to speak the truth. Their crime remains that of silence and toeing the party line even when criminals were being patronised and allowed to seize control of Lyari under the PPP flag.
All through the 2008-2013 term of the PPP’s rule, its lawmakers from Lyari could not even enter their own constituencies and the party cadre and local leaders were systematically forced to take a backseat. The so-called party hardliners, who wanted to keep their coalition partner – the MQM – on a tight leash banked for this on gangsters, who established a state within the state. This carrot-and-stick policy meant for the MQM played havoc with the city.
Lyari gangsters have become a curse for traders, shopkeepers and businesspeople. They have no choice but to dole out protection money to keep their shutters open, especially in some of the old commercial areas of the city. If anyone refuses to pay, the price is often a whizzing bullet or a hand-grenade attack. There were unprecedented lockout of businesses and shops as traders and shopkeepers protested during the PPP’s last stint in power – to no avail.
Organised networks of criminals, fanning out of Lyari, routinely deprive citizens of their cash, valuables and mobile phones in the main business and commercial districts as well as in the so-called upscale neighbourhoods. The law enforcers just watch.
The demoralised police force lacks resources, including sophisticated weapons, communication equipment and fuel and is in a state of inertia because of political pressures. No wonder, its senior officers, deployed at Lyari’s four police stations, often first take permission from gangsters before moving in their respective localities and try to remain on their right side for fear of their lives. Political expediency and opportunism never allow the other law-enforcement agencies, including the paramilitary rangers, to opt for an even-handed crackdown.
In Pakistan’s largest city, this could be the worst possible publicity statement for the PPP, which instead of giving better health care, education and jobs to the residents of its loyal support base, gave them the rule of mafias, guns, drugs, lawlessness and violence.
It was a mistake to think that the PPP would learn from the electoral thrashing it received in the May 2013 elections and mend its ways and indulge in some serious rethinking and self-criticism. In the only province where the party managed to form government, Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah – soon after taking oath – went straight to a reception hosted by the theoretically banned, but practically operating Aman Committee. It was his public statement on what lay ahead for Karachi.
The PPP’s new term in Sindh has started with a spike in killings and violence in Lyari as authorities continue to blatantly ignore crimes committed by gangsters, many of whom now carry the party tag. In fact they have successfully managed to establish their domain in the locality.
As violence and lawlessness rages in Lyari, the authorities have been holding negotiations and brokering deals between warring groups. Such shameful strategies, which further undermine the law and the writ of the state, can only be applied in Pakistan where – rather than bringing lawbreakers, criminals and terrorists to justice – the authorities negotiate with them.
Is there any hope left for Karachi? I am afraid not – at least not under the current PPP government and its existing mindset, which refuses to learn and unlearn from its mistakes.
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