Karachi killings must stop
More people have died from violence in Karachi than from suicide attacks in the whole of Pakistan so far this year
A recent surge in targeted killings in Karachi is the product of years of lawlessness, much of which implicates major political parties and not just militant groups. With ubiquitous poverty and an ever-growing population, failure to break the link between politics and criminal violence will turn the country's economic hub into another warzone Pakistan can ill afford.
Violent crimes have an old history in Karachi, but civilians are being targeted in larger numbers, creating fear and panic on a scale that has not been seen in two decades. Most of the time this bustling metropolis is a model for organised chaos, and our ethnic, religious and other communities mingle freely, be it in business, street sports or our many mixed families.
Yet that cohesion has been tested recently by a series of killings that have sparked deadly clashes between rival groups and even pitted neighbourhoods against criminal gangs. This year so far there have been more than 1,100 violent deaths, including about 60 over the last week (and eight just this Monday), although the figure may be even higher given that many fatalities are not documented. More people have died from targeted killings in Karachi this year than in suicide attacks in the rest of the country.
Local political parties have been reluctant to confront the violence because of their murky relationships with groups implicated in some of the attacks. One of these is a powerful gang blamed for the shooting of 12 traders, apparently for refusing to pay it kickbacks. The gang's stronghold is in Lyari Town, an ancient and impoverished ethnic Baloch community near Karachi port and a constituency represented by the Pakistan Peoples party (PPP). A number of residents contacted by Comment is free explained that successive PPP representatives and local police have failed to crack down on the gang, which is heavily involved in the lucrative drugs trade that is siphoned out of Pakistan through Karachi, even though it has been intimidating residents and businesses for years.
The ethnic Pashtun Awami National party (ANP) and the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) that mostly represents parts of the Urdu-speaking community have also been guilty of spiralling into an increasingly violent rivalry over political and economic control of some of the most populous regions of Karachi. Both parties' senior leadership have at times tried to resolve the disputes nonviolently.
But those demonstrations should not be surprising. Although the lawyers' movement of 2007-2009 brought out much of the middle classes in protest at General Musharraf's suspension of the chief justice, it is the country's poorest who typically take to the streets to protest about everything from cricket to political rivalries, and give up their lives in the process.
About 100 people were killed in riots following the assassination of an MQM politician on 2 August, followed two weeks later by the murder of an ANP politician causing an outbreak of violence that killed 15. Schools and transport were shut down the next day, and much of Karachi's economic activity was again disrupted.
Religious groups from the Shia and Sunni Muslim communities have also been blamed for a spate of sectarian killings in Karachi this year, often centred on control of mosques and Islamic centres. On 5 October, Maulvi Ameen, a former member of the banned Deobandi militant outfit Sipah-e-Sahaba, was assassinated. Ameen's death was blamed by group members on the rival Sunni Tehreek organisation.
On 7 October, two days after Ameen's death, eight people died in a bombing of the most revered Sufi shrine in Karachi. Following accusations from senior Sunni Tehreek leaders, police arrested several of the Deobandi religious community for the attack, however there is no evidence that the detained were responsible for the attack. Some senior police, politicians and analysts believe Islamist groups such as al-Qaida may be behind some of the assassinations in an attempt to create chaos in the city.
Karachi is an easy target. In the slums of the volatile Golimar neighbourhood there are no proper roads, no legitimate means to access electricity or gas, and no access to what we would consider clean drinking water. The police rarely venture here, and local youths patrol the streets at night with pistols and machine guns.
Small arms have been readily available in Karachi since the Afghan jihad against the Soviets in the 1980s, when the black market for smuggled and cheap, locally produced weapons grew exponentially. Along with this, continued links between political power and the illicit economy have made it all too easy for disagreements to spiral into chaos.
For as long as those without the benefits of power and privilege have died in that chaos our leaders have avoided the necessary, drastic measures to bring order. The police have sporadically tried to investigate, but they are often dealing with powerful interests and internal corruption. Be that as it may, Pakistan can ill afford its economic centre turning into another battleground.
