Karachi target killings: The solution

[Aceones]

Re: Karachi target killings: The solution

@khoji

Here is my take on it. I think various elements are involved in these target killings. It started with some Urdu speakers worrying about Pashtuns “taking over” the city. I remember reading graffiti like “Karachi tumhara nahin hamara he”. These people resorted to violence to deliver their message, and started killing innocent people on streets and also some ANP workers.
Was MQM as an organization involved in it, or was it the act of some individuals belonging to MQM? I am not sure. It’s your guess based on your inclination.

ANP started replying in kind. They started killing common people who they believed were MQM workers. So this way it became a two-way fight among the two gangs of criminals.

Now Mirza being an incompetent interior minister did not know what to do. He started hurling accusations especially on MQM as an organization to be involved in it. Such statements did nothing to stop killings, and only raised the political temperature. But these accusations did provide Mirza a relief to hide his own incompetence and failure to stop these killings.
He also gave a taste of “their” medicine by allowing Lyari gangs to wage war on Urdu speakers in Karachi (not just MQM). This resulted in killings of Sher Shah market. Thus Zulfiqar Mirza proved himself to be not much different from very same people he hates. If he says that MQM allows terrorism then he himself did the same thing.

The solution, I think, would be to keep the rhetoric down and go after those involved in these killings, regardless of their political affiliation. These murderers deserve to be looked as criminals and criminals alone; not Pashtuns, and Muhajirs, and Sindhis, etc.

Just issuing statement will achieve absolutely nothing. If action is to be taken, if operation is to be conducted in some area then just do it. And if MQM and ANP as organizations are involved in these killings then so be it.
The worst thing that can happen to Karachi is to make those people feel impunity. If they are allowed to go free now then they will resort to same violence tomorrow.

khoji for once i genuinely agree with you on this. the only thing i want to add is, when someone gets caught, lets not ghiraofy the thana, and lets fully cooperate the security agencies be it police or rangers, in all the inspections/ raids they want to carry out. the best we can do is select few representatives of each political AND ethnic party to accompany the law enforcers, to shut everyone’s mouth who can later come out and start crying about discrimination. and let the operation happen at all areas including landhi, liaqatabad, nazimabad etc, not only sultanabad and al asif square