Karachi violence: beyond the Taliban
Published: January 13, 2010
Shireen M Mazari
The killings in Karachi have continued since the terrorist attack on the Ashura procession, with 40 deaths in four days primarily of rival political activists. It has led to recriminations amongst the major political parties in Sindh and in the National Assembly the opposition has demanded a debate on the Karachi killings. Yet the interior minister has sought to paint this violence as part of the Taliban militancy against the US-led War on Terror. This is an absurdity that will do even more damage to Pakistan because it will prevent the government from dealing with the real cause of the violence. As it is, Karachi threatens to blow up into a replay of the decades’ earlier political violence between warring political parties that destroyed the city.
One needs to take a long hard look at the manner in which the violence began in Karachi on Ashura. Again, the occasion was used by a well organised group that sought to use the occasion to ignite a wider programme of violence. After all, targeting an Ashura procession would make the terrorist attack fall conveniently within the usual terrorist ambit that has Pakistan in its grip. However, right from the start, there was something different to the Karachi Ashura terrorism and it showed up almost immediately. The arson that destroyed shops and markets was not just a random display of anger but a planned campaign of destruction where people had already been placed with means to ignite the fires. After all, people who participate in an Ashura procession hardly come prepared to set the place ablaze - and they certainly do not carry specialised ignitable chemicals on them.
Other issues relating to the fires that destroyed so many shops and export godowns also came to the fore but so far have been pushed into the background because of the violence that has spread in the city. For instance, how come old shops on only one side of the road were burned? Apparently, these shops had been occupied by traders for a long time on low rents and an effort was already underfoot to get them out to another location so that developers - the powerful land mafia of Karachi - could take over. Was it a mere coincidence that the developers’ job became easier as a result of the fires? How did the fires spread so quickly and so methodically and where was all the fire-fighting equipment?
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