Karachi: Harder Times Ahead

By Amir Zia
The News
Wednesday, July 25, 2012

The self-inflicted law-and-order crisis of Karachi is one of the biggest failures of the PPP-led coalition, which inherited a relatively peaceful city when it assumed power in March 2008. Former military ruler Pervez Musharraf managed Karachi better – at least when it comes to controlling politically and ethnically motivated violence.

We are again being told that the government has decided to move against extortionists of Karachi and curb the lawlessness and rampant violence on its streets, which claimed nearly 140 lives by July 22.
President Asif Ali Zardari, during one of his recent sojourns in this troubled city, asked the person in charge of interior ministry, Rahman Malik – perhaps for the umpteenth time – to show zero tolerance towards anarchy and violence in the country’s main commercial hub where many traders, businesspeople and industrialists, along with ordinary lower-middle and middle-class citizens, have long been the easy target of criminal-cum-political mafias, bands of bandits and all sorts of villains. The president also made the much-needed revelation that the protection of life and property of citizens remains the government’s top priority.
But haven’t we heard such phrases loads of times in the recent and not so recent past? President Zardari must have lost count as to how many times he gave similar advice to the interior ministry, which came up with another quick plan to combat the extortion mafia and killers. But its past performance hardly gives us any hope.
Such plans and statements just add to an already huge pile of hollow words that mean little for citizens of this restive city where the death toll in politically, religiously and ethnically motivated violence crossed the 1,150 mark in less than seven months of 2012.
The first four years of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)-led coalition were equally bad for Karachi. According to media reports, more than 4,000 people were killed during 2008-11 in similar violence, bringing the total number of such killings to over 5,100 so far. As we continue to count tortured and bullet-riddled bodies on a daily basis at the fag-end of the PPP-led rule, there appears no end in sight to this bloodshed.
Ironically, most killings do not even end up on the front page of the national newspapers now or get prime slots in main bulletins and talk shows of the news channels. The non-stop brutalities around us have, indeed, created a general sense of apathy in the society. This abnormality has been accepted as a fait accompli.
The ritualistic tough statements and plans of action are for the gallery, but they fail to excite the jaded spectators, who ironically are the main victim of this tragedy.
The self-inflicted law-and-order crisis of Karachi is one of the biggest failures of the PPP-led coalition, which inherited a relatively peaceful city when it assumed power in March 2008. Former military ruler Pervez Musharraf managed Karachi better – at least when it comes to controlling politically and ethnically motivated violence. During 2000-2007, such killings remained well below the 200-mark on an average every year. In 2007, there was a slight spike in violence as political parties swung into action smelling imminent elections, but still the death toll remained below 400 compared with today’s annual average of 1,100.
What went wrong in Karachi under the PPP-led rule?
It seemed an ideal start for the coalition government which comprised all the three major stakeholders in the city -- the PPP, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the Awami National Party (ANP). There appeared more commonality among these political parties than differences on broader national issues that matter for the country. All three represent secular and liberal politics. They share common views when it comes to combating religious extremism and terrorism. They remain on the same page regarding better relations with the United States and its Nato allies as well as neighbours including India. When the coalition came to power, the ethnic polarisation of the 1980s between the Urdu-speaking people and Pakhtuns also appeared to be long dead and buried. The Urdu-speaking people, Sindhis and Baloch also had been living without any major tensions.
President Zardari, Altaf Hussain and Asfandyar Wali – surely all mean well for the city and are too big, rich and sophisticated in their operations now that they do not need to raise funds through extortionists, who mostly operate under the banner of this or that political party. One would also like to believe their earnest statements on the need for peace and rule of law in Karachi, but the problem is that they have failed to convince the second-tier leaderships and the rank-and-file that the long-term future for them lies in cooperation and not in conflict.
Therefore, the turf wars for guarding old constituencies or expanding domains to the new ones continue. Karachi is also seen as a goldmine by all major and minor stakeholders in which extortion, land grabbing, patronising criminals and mafias – all is justified to exercise control over different neighbourhoods and make quick bucks. 
While the MQM’s tough boys appear more under party discipline and act when told, the PPP and the ANP are having problems with their militants, many of whom have become autonomous as the barrel of the gun dominates politics now.
Zardari’s once dear friend Zulfikar Mirza created the Lyari mess by patronising the shady People’s Peace Committee founded by notorious gangster Rehman Dakait – who was killed in a police encounter in August 2009. Now his cousin Uzair Baloch leads the organisation and has managed to establish a state within a state in Lyari – long considered the PPP’s stronghold. But Mirza’s plan to counter the MQM muscle power through the toughies of Lyari seems to have politically backfired for the PPP, which never had a history of patronising criminals.
The committee has effectively imposed a ban on the PPP’s elected representatives from visiting their constituencies for the past several years and now eyes nominating candidates of its choice in the next elections – on PPP tickets or even without it. The control of Uzair Baloch and his band of merry men in Lyari and their involvement in the racket of extortion and other crime is stuff fit for a tale now.
The PPP seems to have lost the control of its stronghold to gangsters and face the stark choice of either co-opting them as angles on their shoulders or confronting them. Neither of the choice is without complication as the controversial committee is now being blamed by the police for most of the crime in the heart of Karachi.
The ANP in Karachi led by Shahi Syed now hardly plays the game as laid down by peace-loving leader Ghaffar Khan, astute politician Wali Khan or poet politician Ajmal Khattak. It has allowed gangsters, extortionists and land-grabbers to flourish in its ranks under the grand plan of matching the MQM strike power.
The MQM carries the burden of its past history on its shoulder. Todate the MQM is seen by many of its rivals as a player which introduced the organised racket of extortion and politics of body bags in Karachi. Although the party is trying to change its image and standard operating procedures, it has both the political power and muscle to match all its rivals blow by blow.
These three ruling parties are responsible for Karachi’s law and order problem. Indeed, they have failed the people of this city where restoring order and peace remains within grasp if politics of expediency is put aside and police and the other arms of the law are allowed to operate independently and evenhandedly. But under this democratic dispensation this is perhaps too much to ask especially when elections are around the corner and daggers already drawn by major players to extract their pound of flesh. Karachi should brace it self for tougher times in the coming months.

La Cosa Nostra

By Amir Zia
Newsline
April 2011

Officially banned, the Amn Committee still remains active in criminal enterprises across the city.

Although President Asif Ali Zardari ordered a ban on the Peoples’ Amn Committee last month in a bid to pacify the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and ensure it remains part of the ruling coalition, many leaders and supporters of his Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) remain divided about whether to condemn or condone this shadowy group. Contrary to its name, since its formation, the Amn Committee has engendered anything but peace in the city. In fact, it is widely deemed largely responsible for the soaring crime rate in the commercial and financial hub of Karachi.
It is also recognised that the committee has sidelined the organisational structure of the ruling party in Lyari – long considered the main stronghold of Bhutto loyalists in Karachi – and even occupied its offices.
All that aside, some PPP Sindh stalwarts see the committee as a bulwark against, and a counter-balance to the muscle-power of the MQM. Others question whether supporting and patronising criminals and gun-toting militants makes any sense for the largest political party in the country. “When you bring criminals and guns into the fray, it hurts political forces in the long run,” said a senior PPP Karachi leader, requesting anonymity. “But some of our friends within the party who lack political vision and experience, fail to understand this.”
Until recently, the pro and anti-Amn Committee groups in the party were fairly equally balanced. But when Sindh Home Minister Zulfikar Mirza openly announced his support for the committee and unabashedly participated in its programmes, and several other key PPP leaders also displayed their proclivity for this controversial group, the pro votes tipped the scales.
Senior PPP leaders, including Senator Faisal Raza Abidi, MNA Abdul Qadir Petal and several others, along with Zulfikar Mirza kept politically supporting the committee, despite the reservations of many of their colleagues – especially the PPP’s three elected representatives from Lyari, who faced a tough time because of the committee in their respective constituencies.
While the Amn Committee aggressively articulated the grievances and problems of the people of Lyari, the target of their wrath remained mostly the elected PPP representatives from the area. For months at a stretch, PPP MNA Nabeel Gabol, for example, was not even allowed to visit his constituency. The two PPP Sindh Assembly members – Muhammad Saleem Hingoro and Muhammad Rafiq Engineer – also remained targets of criticism for their alleged “failure to carry out development work and resolve the problems of the people.”
The Amn Committee was formed by one of Lyari’s most notorious criminals, Rehman Dakait in June 2008, purportedly to carry out social and welfare work. Sardar Abdul Rehman Baloch as his admirers like to call him, aspired for a political career. This ambition was, however, cut short when he was killed in a police encounter in August 2009. Following his demise, the stewardship of the committee fell to young Uzair Baloch, Dakait’s relative who is wanted by the police in several cases. Meanwhile, the Peoples’ Amn Committee grew from strength to strength, making a solid base for itself first in Lyari – one of the most backward areas of the city – and then expanding its range of “lawful” and unlawful activities in other parts of the city. By opening small schools, running medical centres, and restoring parks and playgrounds, it earned itself the support of the locals. It also helped lower the crime rate in this locality – at least on the surface. But gradually, as gangsters, disgruntled workers and supporters of the PPP and unemployed youngsters from Lyari all started to assemble under its banner, it began to be seen in many circles as more a criminal enterprise than a welfare body.
Sensing the effectiveness of this group – which kept expressing its loyalty to the PPP even while virtually disallowing the party’s local leadership from operating in the area – some key ruling party leaders encouraged the Amn Committee to expand its network in other neighbourhoods. That brought the committee into direct conflict with the MQM and triggered an extensive bouts of killings, starting from early 2010.
Apart from its turf war with the MQM, Amn Committee members also went all out to expand their economic interests in the city – especially in the main commercial areas and bazaars in the close vicinity of Lyari.
On account of its activities, senior police officials, business leaders and the MQM started accusing them of being the main perpetrators of crime in the city – a charge strongly denied by committee spokesman Zafar Baloch. “The MQM accuses us because they see us as a direct challenge to their monopoly in Karachi,” said Baloch, while claiming that the group remains loyal to the PPP and Bhutto’s political legacy.
That some PPP members subscribe to this contention can be gauged by the fact that even a few hours before Interior Minister Rehman Malik announced President Zardari’s decision of banning the Amn Committee at a joint press conference with MQM leaders in the wee hours of March 17, PPP Sindh leaders were calling the group a “sister organisation.”
On March 16, Taj Haider, a senior PPP leader, explained the difference between an affiliate and a sister organisation, saying that while the Amn Commitee was not formally recognised by the party as an official wing, “all those affiliated with the committee are not criminals. Many of them are PPP supporters and so it is our sister organisation.”
Sister organisation or not, and opposition from within the PPP aside, it was the MQM that compelled Zardari to ban the party, failing which it threatened to quit the ruling coalition. The President concurred and went a step further: when Rehman Malik announced the ban, he also expressed the government’s intention to crack down on criminals without any discrimination, in conjunction with the MQM.
Within hours of the announcement of the ban, the Amn Committee ostensibly decided to voluntarily disband its structure and hand over its offices to the PPP. Following this, most members of the committee were assimilated in the party, but PPP leaders were quick to assert that criminals would be kept at a distance.
The question is, will this promise really materialise? And has the committee really disbanded at all? So far, there isn’t a great deal of room for optimism.
The Amn Committee may have been banned on paper, but its key figures and followers, many wanted in dozens of cases, continue to roam freely. But it is not just the Amn Committee which remains the mother of all troubles in Karachi. There are also a number of other ethnic, political, religious and purely criminal mafias that operate in the city and have their fair share in whipping up trouble. Thus, the racket of extortion, kidnappings, robberies, land grabbing and killings continue unabated in the city.
While the fact that the PPP and the MQM – Sindh’s two main forces – have announced their resolve to fight crime and restore supremacy of the law is very welcome, the real test will be seeing this translated into action on the ground. Both these parties – in fact all political parties – must end the politics of expediency and get rid of criminals in their ranks. For this, they will need the will to make a conscious policy decision, because it is bound to be resisted by vested political and economic interests.lisation of politics and politicisation of crime have become Karachi’s biggest challenges. Political parties have to empower institutions – from the police to the judiciary – to help eradicate these trends, and they need to get the ball rolling now. Time could prove to be the city’s worst enemy.

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.

The Fall Of Lyari

By Amir Zia
The News on Sunday
January 30, 2011

With the votebank and demography in its favour, but with no party organisation, is the PPP trapped in this backward neighbourhood?

It is considered the strongest lair of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Bhutto loyalists in Karachi,but the elected representatives of the ruling party remain among the most unpopular individuals here. Graffiti on the walls ridicule and insult PPP lawmakers elected in the 2008 general elections from Lyari -- one of the earliest and most backward neighbourhoods of Karachi -- where old and new tricolour PPP flags dot the electricity poles, rickety old houses and buildings.

At many places, along with posters and huge pictures of slain family members of the Bhutto dynasty and President Asif Ali Zardari, photographs of a notorious gangster of his time, Sardar Abdul Rehman, alias Dakait also adorn the neighbourhood -- underlining the emergence of a new political phenomenon in this PPP stronghold.

Yes, the name and legend of Rehman Dakait, killed in a controversial police encounter in August 2009, continue to live in Lyari. Dakait’s ambitions to join politics from the PPP platform ended with his death, but his People’s Amn Committee (PAC) emerged as a force to reckon with in Lyari -- a PPP stronghold since 1970s. Disgruntled supporters and workers of the PPP, gangsters and criminals comprise the core of the Amn Committee, which takes pride in doing social and welfare work. For the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and even some PPP stalwarts, the Amn Committee symbolises criminalisation of politics, while its supporters say that it represents the voice of ordinary people and party workers ignored and forgotten by the leadership.

But between these two extreme points of view, the hard fact is that the Amn Committee has effectively managed to establish its grip over Lyari at the cost of PPP’s organisational structure. The PPP member National Assembly from the area Nabeel Gabol avoids his constituency because of what he believes a threat to his life. Gabol has been staying away from Lyari for months now -- even before he provoked the recent wrath of President Zardari by what the party insiders say his “ill-timed” and “thoughtless” statement about the two PPP allies the Awami National Party (ANP) and the MQM -- which nearly cost him his ministry.

The two PPP MPAs from the area -- Muhammad Saleem Hingoro and Muhammad Rafiq Engineer -- are taunted and badmouthed by a vast number of people in Lyari and have restricted movements in their respective constituencies, where the Amn Committee now wields power.

“It is not that there is no PPP structure in Lyari,” says a senior PPP leader and lawmaker from Karachi requesting anonymity. “From the ward to the district level, there are office-bearers and the party structure, but it is dormant. After coming to power, the leadership failed to come up to the expectation of people. They have been hiding from the people and their demands. The vacuum has been filled by the People’s Amn Committee. Those PPP workers have joined the committee, who were not allowed to rise within the party. They are third and fourth tier of local PPP leaders.”

Uzair Baloch, a cousin of Rehman Dakait, who now heads the committee, first went to jail while protesting on a call made by PPP and so was his father, he added.

Zafar Baloch, a spokesman for the Amn Committee, said that the elected representatives disappointed the people. All uplift projects in Lyari are being carried under a more than three billion rupees special presidential fund, he said. “These elected representatives have nothing to their credit,” he claimed, adding that Gabol has not been barred from Lyari. “Gabol himself does not come to Lyari despite being elected from here. We are ready to provide him protection in Lyari. But if his voters are angry with him, what can we do. Even an MQM minister and a supporter live in Lyari and none of them have ever been attacked or victimised.”

But matters are not as simple as they appear as the Amn Committee now spearheads not just the drive against crime in the area, but also works on social welfare projects -- from restoring public parks to running clinics and supporting education institutions. Police sources say that street crime, rampant all over Karachi, is nonexistent in Lyari. Drugs, which once used to sell openly, are now being sold under wraps. The appearances can, however, be deceptive.

The committee is trying to expand its influence. And in doing this, it is clashing with established forces -- especially the MQM. The tussle is one big cause of the continued violence in the city where more than 70 people have been killed in the first 25 days of January in political assassinations and crime related incidents. These rival groups also accuse one another of running extortion racket, which police officers admit have direct connections with political parties.

Indeed, politics has transformed into a sordid and bloody business in which there are no rules of the game. And the irony is that the central leadership of the political parties and the state institutions not just tolerate it, but in some ways patronise it.

Another disgruntled PPP lawmaker claimed that even the Station House Officers (SHOs) at the Lyari police stations are being appointed on Amn Committee’s recommendations. It is not the local leadership, but Sindh Home Minister Zulfikar Mirza, who has been supporting it, he claimed. “The PPP as a party has vanished from Lyari. Even there have been instances of kidnapping of PPP local leaders -- which was unthinkable in the past.”

The whole problem emerges out of the mindset of a coterie within the PPP that Amn Committee and ANP can be used as an effective force to counter MQM’s muscle power. But this hedging of position by individuals is being done at the cost of the party, PPP insiders say.

“Supporting criminal element is not an answer to a problem. In the long run, it will hurt not just the PPP, but the overall politics of this city,” the PPP lawmaker said. “When we go to Lyari, there appears no security. We feel threatened. Criminals will be calling the shots here in the next elections.”

Some old PPP supporters say that their party has been trapped in Lyari. “The Amn Committee is pro-PPP, but not in the party discipline,” said a veteran PPP worker, who in mid-1980s was an active leader of the People’s Student Federation -- the PPP’s student front. “The PPP has a votebank and demography in its favour in Lyari, but has no organisation. The Amn Committee has not just the organisational structure, but it is also backed by the gun-power.”

Old dwellers of Lyari say that their area, having a strong tradition of democratic struggle against every military rule especially that of General Ziaul Haq, has now transformed. “All the leftwing and nationalists groups which along with PPP workers were the conscience of the area have been wiped out from here. Ideological and honest political workers have taken a backseat or left politics. It is the area of toughies and goons who are now in the forefront,” the former student leader said.

Baloch of the Amn Committee says that his group has no political agenda. “We want to merge with the PPP. But those with vested interests do not want us.”

With the PPP government surviving from one crisis to another and Karachi remains on the boil with ethnic, religious and politically motivated violence, there hardly appears a chance of the change of fortunes for the people of Lyari.

The Battle for Karachi

By Amir Zia
Newsline -- Feb. 2010

It was not just a simple boy-meets-girl love story with a tragic ending. It had a twist. The two lovers were already married – just not to each other. The very fact that they belonged to different ethnic backgrounds and lived in a Karachi neighbourhood where ethnic and political tensions ran high, made their love saga even more complicated. Muhammad Amir, who was in his early 30s and a father of two children, belonged to an Urdu-speaking family, while Zainab was a Baloch whose husband worked in Dubai.

Despite repeated warnings from family and some of Zainab’s neighbours, the two continued their taboo relationship. On January 4, Amir was kidnapped. Two days later, his beheaded body was found in Lyari’s Kalakot area and several hours later the head located in Chakiwara, another part of Lyari.

Amir was an activist of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). This association added another grim twist to the tale. A case of an otherwise routine, but controversial, ‘honour’ killing, exploded into a spree of tit-for-tat targeted murders between militants of rival ethnic groups. Stopping this violence proved beyond the powers of the police as these militants were supporters of the two major parties of the ruling coalition – the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the MQM. Police say that at least 24 people were killed in four days of violence. Tensions ran high not just in parts of Karachi’s District South, but also in some areas of its adjacent District West – highlighting again not just the deep political and ethnic divides in Pakistan’s business and industrial capital, but also underlining the muscle power of the armed groups and the sordid relation between crime and politics.

“Criminalisation of politics and politicisation of crime is the biggest problem in Karachi,” says a former IG police, requesting anonymity, who served in Sindh in various important positions for several years. “All the major political parties have criminals in their ranks and they are protected and patronised by politicians.”

The Amir-Zainab love saga indeed sparked the violence, but any other issue could have pit rival bands of militants against each other. The innate germs of political and ethnic rivalry and the clash of economic interests, coupled with rampant poverty and crime, provide the basis for such a showdown.

As the police try to trace the killers of Amir and locate Zainab, their story remains nothing more than a minor footnote in the brewing conflict among different political players and crime syndicates operating in Karachi.

“Crime and politics are so interwoven and the relationship among various stakeholders is so complex that breaking away from the present scheme of things appears impossible for any government,” says the former IG. “Many of those in power have a tainted past and a history of supporting and cultivating criminals and their gangs.”

For many security experts, Karachi, with all its ethnic, political and sectarian problems and crime mafias, is like a bubbling volcano all set to explode. The glimpses of the seething lava were seen as recently as December 28, 2009, when angry bands of youngsters went on a rampage, burning and looting more than 6,000 shops following the bombing of the Muharram procession. Top police officials say it was a “natural reaction” by participants of the mourning procession. (For details see CCPO Karachi’s interview in the box).

In the past, too, Karachi has suffered from widespread violence and terrorism scores of times in which politics, ethnicity, sectarianism and crime played a major role.

As the city was limping back to normalcy following the December 28 incident, a fresh bout of violence erupted among rival political activists. According to police data, more than 75 people were killed in the first 10 days of January alone – mostly political workers belonging to different parties. Many private scores were also settled in the killing spree, forcing the federal government to intervene to help calm the situation.

Top PPP and MQM leaders, nudged by President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, managed to impose a truce on the streets. But the undercurrents of rivalry and bitterness among the workers and the local leaders of the two groups remain, and are certain to test the unity of the ruling coalition again, in the days to come.

Background interviews with leaders of the two parties expose the fragility of peace –especially in District South – the oldest part of Karachi where rival ethnic groups share neighbourhoods and streets.

The MQM sources hold the Peoples Amn Committee of Lyari responsible for triggering the violence. “This Amn Committee comprises gangsters and criminals – members of the notorious Rehman Dakait’s gang,” says an MQM provincial law-maker, who asked not to be named. “And the problem is that the local chapter of the PPP is held hostage to this gang.”

But in the highly polarised world of Karachi politics, one man’s villain is another other man’s hero. And that is the case with Rehman, who was killed by the police in a controversial encounter in August 2009, triggering massive protests by the people of Lyari – the PPP stronghold in Karachi since the early 1970s. For many Lyari residents, Rehman remains a revered figure – a sort of local Robin Hood.

“No one calls him Dakait here,” says Uzair Ali Baloch, who now heads the peace committee. “They will mind if you call him by this name. He is Sardar Abdul Rehman Baloch. He never committed any robbery. The media, the police and the government – all have misguided people about him,” he adds. (Read the story on the Peoples Amn Committee).

The Peoples Amn Committee is not a formal arm of the PPP, but comprises party zealots from Lyari who also remain bitter and angry with many of their elected representatives. This had put the PPP in a dilemma and after the initial reluctance in accepting the group as its own, the Karachi PPP lawmakers have warmed to the committee, which enjoys support on the street as well as muscle power.

“The MQM is responsible for the law and order problem,” says a senior PPP leader, who also requested anonymity. Echoing the sentiment of the Peoples’ Amn Committee, he alleges that the MQM has been trying to change the demography of the area to put a dent in the “PPP fort” of Lyari.

“This tussle is all about MQM’s desire to spread its tentacles to the area where they want to establish a housing society – the amenity land of Gutter Baghicha – and they have already taken over many parks in the adjoining District West where they have settled their own people,” says the PPP leader.

The police say that their hands remain tied because of the political expediency of top government officials.

A crackdown on the criminals of Lyari was halted in the second week of January after PPP’s representative from Karachi in the National Assembly made a hue and cry in parliament. President Zardari himself had to intervene to stop the operation, leaving Interior Minister Rehman Malik red-faced as he was the main target of criticism from his own party members.

According to senior police officials, criminals and militants are not a problem restricted to Lyari alone. “Do you think we can search any of the sector offices of the MQM? We were never given a free hand,” complains one senior police official.

Security officials say that the nexus between politics and crime is an old one in Karachi. Extortionist, kidnappers, drug-peddlers, gun-runners and even petty criminals have managed to find their niche in one political party or the other. All of them are heavily armed and most of them have the connections needed to escape arrest and prosecution.

Other political and religious parties which have heavily-armed bands of militants include the Pakhtun nationalist Awami National Party, the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (Haqiqi), the Jamaat-e-Islami, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, the Sunni Tehreek, and Baloch and Sindhi nationalist groups. All are a source of major headaches for the police.

The influx of both licensed and illegally acquired weapons make the task of the law- enforcement agencies even more difficult in what they describe as one of the most heavily-armed cities of Pakistan.

“When we say weapons it does not just mean pistols or assault rifles…some of these groups have rocket-propelled grenades, rocket launchers and even shoulder-fired missiles,” reports an intelligence official.

However, officially, both the PPP and the MQM deny any links with gangsters or criminals. (See the interviews of MQM leader Farooq Sattar in the magazine and the PPP’s Abdul Qadir Patel online).

Police officials say that the vast squatter settlements and low-income neighbourhoods, especially those which are home to the local and foreign immigrant workers, are the teeming grounds of crime, terrorism and ethnic and sectarian tensions. The neighbourhoods dominated by Urdu-speaking people also have their political, religious and criminal mafias, they add.

But Iqbal Haider, former law minister and a human rights activist, says that criminal gangs also operate with “impunity” in affluent neighbourhoods. “There were dozens of cases of organised gang rapes in Karachi’s Defence and Clifton areas that were brought to our notice. One of the culprits arrested confessed to raping more than 40 women with his aides.”

In one incident, a police mobile van blocked the car of a victim during peak hours on DHA’s 26th street when she was being chased by the kidnappers. “She was kidnapped and raped,” says Haider.

“The hub of the rapists’ activities was a stone throw’s distance from Bilawal House. The perpetuators had criminal and political connections,” Haider maintains. “The building was occupied illegally by politically-connected mafia and some police officials. Police took action against them after the wife of some influential person was raped and we contacted every possible government official concerned with security and law and order. Now, incidents of firing and kidnapping have stopped in that area, which proves that if the authorities want, they can check it.” Haider adds, “No organised crime can exist without administrative support – be it in Lyari or any other part of Pakistan.”

Says a senior police official: one stark example of the involvement of political activists in terrorism and crime can be seen from the fact that more than 100 police officers who took part in the 1990s operations against the MQM were assassinated.

“Such killings stopped after April 2009, after we gave a strict warning to the leaders of that group through powerful government quarters that it won’t be tolerated anymore,” he says. “I told senior government officials that we can no longer take attending the funeral of one officer after another.”

PPP lawmakers also blame militants belonging to their coalition partners for the assassinations of Baloch activists who were campaigning against the utilisation of Gutter Baghicha amenity land for residential purposes. “Even in Lyari, they supported one gang of criminals against the other,” says a PPP leader from Karachi. “Their involvement in crimes can be seen from the fact that MQM workers top the list of the NRO beneficiaries in criminal cases.”

But the MQM strongly denies the charge of its involvement in terrorism or crime and says it has expelled more than 3,500 of its workers to cleanse the party of such elements. (For details see Farooq Sattar’s interview). In 2009, the party says it lost 94 of its workers in targeted killings mostly by criminals in Lyari and militants belonging to the rival Haqiqi faction.

In Lyari and its adjacent areas, MQM workers and supporters were targeted in an organised manner, says an MQM member of the provincial assembly. “We know, and the police knows, that the Peoples Amn Committee, which is in fact the new name of Rehman Dakait’s gang, is behind the killings, violence and crime [in the city]. But the PPP leadership is unable to do anything. In fact, the PPP is now subservient to this gang.”

The MQM claims there is an informal alliance between the peace committee, the ANP and the Haqiqi in an attempt to cut the MQM down to size. “There was even an incident when the beheaded body of one of our workers – Mohammed Mobin Sheikh – was paraded on a donkey cart,” says an MQM MPA.

But MQM’s anger is not just directed against Lyari. “The criminals and terrorists have safe havens in other parts of the city as well. Some Haqiqi terrorists operate from the Sherpao area – a Pakhtun-dominated neighbourhood – adjacent to Landhi. If they are ever chased in their hideouts, it could lead to ethnic violence,” says the MQM MPA. “When we ask the police to take action, they refuse, fearing collateral damage.” Citing another example, he says the two slain attackers of the Sindhi nationalist leader Basheer Qureshi belonged to the Haqiqi faction and carried the passes of an intelligence agency.

But apart from the allegations and counter allegations by the main political players, the fact remains that each side has skeletons in their closets. Lyari, where hundreds of people were killed in the infamous war between the rival gangs of Rehman Dakait and Arshad Pappu, is a symbol of that tussle, but the overlapping of crime and politics is a rampant phenomenon in the entire city.

From cases of kidnapping for ransom – in which not just Taliban militants are involved but also some key leaders of the Sindhi nationalist parties – to the subtly-run extortion racket, criminals have links with activists of one party or the other.

Security officials say it is easy for both criminals and terrorists to remain anonymous in a megalopolis like Karachi. The indifference of city life provides a perfect shelter of anonymity to everyone. The corruption and connivance of the police and the politics of patronage helps the criminal-political mafias to sustain, grow and expand.

“Karachi is like a gold-laying goose,” says a retired police officer. “Every political party likes to get its share of the booty according to its power and strength.”

The problem is magnified with key political players vying to control the city, which provides billions of rupees in donations and through the patronage of legal and illegal businesses. The simple rule of gaining power and influence in the city is that there are no rules of the game. Top PPP and MQM leaders may want to keep their alliance intact to remain in power as well as to provide a semblance of peace and rule of law in the city, but breaking the nexus of crime and politics does not seem to be on their agenda. The citizens of Karachi seem destined to live dangerously from one cycle of killings and violence to another. Powerful mafias of criminals, interests groups and bands of terrorists all have the potential and power to ignite city-wide violence at will. And in these testing times, the law-enforcement agencies continue to be found wanting.

Beyond the Grave

By Amir Zia
Newsline -- Feb. 2010

From gangsters to peace activists, the transformation of Sardar Abdul Rehman Baloch alias Dakait and his band of “merry men” is a story fit for a folk tale. And like most protagonists of an action-packed tragedy, Rehman died young. A controversial police encounter in August 2009 ended Rehman’s ambitions of taking a plunge into electoral politics. But in Lyari – a PPP stronghold in Karachi – his name and legacy seem to have survived, at least for the time being.

The Peoples Amn Committee, which Rehman founded in June 2008 following a truce with his rival, Arshad Pappu, helped end the protracted Lyari gang war, which claimed more than 300 lives during the last couple of years of the former PML-Q-led government in Sindh. But after the February 2008 general elections, the formation of the PPP-led governments both at the centre and Sindh province enabled Rehman and his men to try to change their image. And they really worked hard for this transformation.

The peace committee took off with a bang. Not just Rehman’s gang members, but many disgruntled PPP activists and jobless youngsters flocked under its banner. The committee took upon itself the task of serving the people and doing social work.

Encroachments in the Gabol Park were demolished and its status as a football ground was restored. A small medical centre was established; several places, including some key educational institutions were cleaned and given a face-lift. People were encouraged to donate to local seminaries and educational institutions. In these donations, Rehman himself took the lead.

The peace committee members claim that Rehman even donated some of his family property for the use of the people of the area. From the dreaded Rehman Dakait, who eluded the police for years, he earned himself the honour of being called Sardar Abdul Rehman Baloch in no time. Some key PPP leaders and elected representatives acknowledged Rehman’s street and muscle power and started to give him due respect.

“Yes, he was controversial. People dreaded him, but he seemed to be a rising star of Lyari,” says a local PPP leader, requesting anonymity. “He was both a helping hand for the party [PPP] as well as a challenge. Owning him was a problem as was disowning him. Even during the last elections, his support proved a blessing for the PPP candidates in Lyari.”

However, the biggest achievement of Rehman and his men, according to his admirers, was their success in beating crime in Lyari.

“Unlike other parts of Karachi, you won’t find any mobile phone snatching incident in Lyari or any other street crime,” says Zafar Baloch, a member of the peace committee. “We even managed to ban the sale of heroin and other lethal drugs.”

An old resident of Lyari, who is a member of the PPP, says that street crime – including phone snatching – almost stopped. “As far as drugs are concerned, they are still available, but no longer openly. It is being done in a very discreet manner, which is a big change,” he says.

The committee even proved successful in implementing a ban on aerial firing at weddings, which claims several lives each year. Violators of this ban are slapped with a fine of Rs 200,000 and committee members ensure that it is paid.

The job of fighting crime has become one more bone of contention between the committee and the police, who once enjoyed monetary gains for protecting and abating crime, claim the committee members.

However, for human rights activists like Iqbal Haider, a former PPP leader, some criminals do humanitarian work to win acceptance and support. “It is basically a cover-up. It should not change the reality that they break the law and resort to heinous crimes.”

Waseem Ahmed, CCPO Karachi, says that the killing of Rehman, who carried head money of five million rupees, along with his three accomplices, was a major achievement and underlines the resolve of the police to fight crime. “He was wanted in around 80 criminal cases including murder and kidnappings for ransom.”

However, notwithstanding the police version, thousands of people attended Rehman’s funeral, giving him a hero’s farewell. In the ensuing violence, at least two people were killed and several wounded. Rehman left behind three wives, 15 children and scores of relatives, personal friends and followers.

Thirty-year-old Uzair Ali Baloch, who now heads the Peoples Amn Committee and is also a first cousin of Rehman, alleges that the cases against Rehman were all cooked up. “He did not commit a single robbery or kidnapping. More than a decade ago one of his cousins was murdered. He took his revenge in line with the tribal tradition and that was all. But the police framed him in dozens of cases,” he tells Newsline.

“They [the police] have even framed 19 cases against me,” says Uzair, while holding court in a lawn owned by Rehman’s family in Lyari.

The beautifully landscaped lush-green lawn – also used for weddings – gives an impression that one is in some affluent area of the city. The labyrinth of dusty, narrow, polluted streets does not give a clue that they can also lead to such a well-maintained place.

Uzair says the police first arrested Rehman in 1996, but he managed to escape from the court. And since then, the hide-and-seek with the police continued – till the fateful day when, at least according to many of his followers, he was assassinated by police in cold blood after the arrest. Police, however, deny the charge.

Rehman’s bloody enmity with the Arshad Pappu gang started when the latter kidnapped and killed one of Rehman’s uncles – Uzair’s father. Politicians – especially under the previous government – played off one gang against the other to make a breach in the PPP stronghold, residents of the area allege.

“We have been PPP supporters all along, the Pappu group was backed by the MQM,” says Uzair. Pappu is now in jail. “When the PPP government came…we all were happy. But its representatives here have disappointed us. They did nothing for the people. They were always found wanting. That’s why the committee started its work.”

“These representatives were found missing even when Rangers clamped down in the area, entered houses and misbehaved with women. This crackdown stopped only when we protested and came out on the streets,” Uzair adds.

“There was a time when PPP could pit a donkey from Lyari and he would win the elections. But now we don’t need donkeys…we need lions to represent the people of Lyari,” he says.

In an attempt to regain its popularity, the PPP has announced a development package for Lyari that includes setting up a medical college and a university in the area.But local residents dispute the plan.

Habib Hasan, a former union council nazim, says in a neighbourhood where the drop-out rate from primary schools is around 70%, it is wrong to open a university and medical college especially when the existing Lyari Degree College and the local hospital are just being given a face-lift.

“They should have concentrated on the basics, including school, employment opportunities, water and sanitation…but they don’t know what the people of Lyari want,” says Hasan.

Aslam Baloch, a resident of the area, says Lyari’s population is booming. “While the city is expanding horizontally, in Lyari we expand vertically – by constructing more floors on our small houses, which multiply our problems – from air pollution to a dearth of clean water to the worsening of sewerage and sanitation facilities – you can keep on counting,” he says.

But the most pressing issue for the Amn committee members perhaps remains its rivalry with the MQM, which is sitting on the outer fringes of the PPP stronghold. The popular talk in Lyari remains that the MQM wants to expand its tentacles – a charge MQM leaders deny.

Dozens of supporters belonging both to the MQM and the peace committee have been killed in recent months in tit-for-tat killings, which were halted in the second week of January after President Asif Ali Zardari himself intervened.

But the basis of the truce remains fragile and violence can explode again as there has been little change in the ground realities – from the dispute over the amenity land of Gutter Baghicha to that of re-demarcation of constituencies. Yes, it all boils down to the fact that there is a tussle for power – a turf war. And in this war, like any other, there are no rules of the game – especially when the rule of law has given way to the rule of armed bands, peace committees and militants of rival political parties. The writ of the state has receded and the vacuum is filled by the local tough guys. Welcome to the brave old world of Lyari.