Karachi, a victim of dirty pakistani politics. The governments of other countries do their utmost to maintain law and order in their countries. The mega cities and fianancial capitals enjoy special attention. But in Pakistan they played their dirty political games in that city that is the hub of industry, trace, fincance and commerce of this country. I put the whole blame on the central governmnets for the chaos seems to be ruling Karachi.
Karachi has gone from bad to worse. There is no other way to describe the city’s woes and its downslide since 1984. The situation has reached such a sorry pass that legendary social worker Abdus Sattar Edhi is contemplating leaving the city and settling elsewhere.
Although Edhi has not decided to close his centres or the services in Pakistan, he is extremely frustrated with the situation. At the time of filing this report, according to Edhi sources, he was in London and may return after two months.
How and why has a city, which has produced people like Edhi and Dr Adeebul Hasan Rizvi, become a security threat not just to its citizens but also to the world? There is no indication that the government is interested in finding the answers to this question. Foreigners are generally advised by their governments to “avoid visiting Karachi” Recently, the Indian cricket team refused to play a Test match here, as did South Africa and New Zealand.
A Dutch company, which has been working in Karachi for the past few years, has decided to ‘pack-up’ and leave. It cites lack of security and pressures from armed groups for the decision. Its decision comes amid reports that the foreign investors are shying away from Karachi.
The Dutch company’s decision came a week before a suicide bomb attack in an imambargah killed 19 people and injured around 80. The suicide bomber has since been identified as a ‘policeman’.
A few days later, 10 people were killed and 20 others injured in an armed attack allegedly involving the activists of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).
The growing violence threatens to plunge Karachi back to the eighties and early nineties when the city was on fire. (See boxes for bomb blasts and terrorist attacks).
Karachi, the city of 14-million people, has witnessed constant bloodshed since 1984. An estimated 5,000 people have been killed in political, ethnic and sectarian violence. The violence has resulted in sharp decline in foreign and local investment.
Many believe the decision to shift the capital to Islamabad from Karachi contributed to an emphasis away from Karachi. The controversy started immediately after the birth of Pakistan but Karachi stayed as the capital until 1959 when the seat of the government was provisionally shifted to Rawalpindi. The groundbreaking ceremony for Islamabad was held in October 1961 and the capital became fully functional in 1967.
Even so Karachi retained it pride of place as the melting pot of Pakistan and as its financial capital. People all over the country thronged to the city in search of jobs, to set up businesses and to find new prospects. On the downside this forced the city to expand and put immense burden on its infrastructure. Civic development in the city has never been able to keep pace with the population expansion.
Karachi remained the city of colour and culture till the mid 70s. The city once had some 70 cinema-houses, nightclubs, bars and other entertainment outlets. Today, the city hardly has 10 cinema-houses and, of course, no nightclubs or bars since they were banned by Mr Bhutto in 1977.
Over the years the city has also seen a rise in the population of aliens. It started with the Afghan refugees but now includes Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans, Burmese and even some Africans. This ahs resulted in higher crime rates and slum dwellings. Karachi today houses thousands of Katchi-Abadis including Asia’s biggest Katchi-Abadi, the Orangi Town. There are some 0.5 million Bengalis, one million Afghans and some 0.5 million other foreign nationals like Burmese, Palestinians, Jordanians etc. Despite the recent registration process the government has no real figures on the alien population.
Police sources, however, say the aliens are not involved in terrorist attacks, which are mounted by either the locals or Pakistanis from Punjab, Frontier or Hazara. The Baloch and Sindhis are primarily into car-lifting and kidnapping for ransom. Even so, some intelligence officials believe hired killers could possibly be drawn from among the aliens.
On the political front, Karachi has led many movements: whether it was the students’ movement of 1953, the 1968 movement against Field Marshal Ayub Khan or the 1977 movement against former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Karachi has mostly been in the vanguard.
In many ways, it is the political consciousness of the city that has also led to the troubles it faces today in the form of ethnic, political and sectarian violence. The clashes between the Pashtuns and Mohajirs during the Ayub era or the Sindhi-Mohajir riots after the Sindhi-language bill in Mr Bhutto’s time are evidence of the city’s political sensibilities.
Karachi has been caught in the grip of sectarian violence since the early days of former military ruler General Zia-ul-Haq. In 1978, some 14 people were killed in sectarian riots after a dispute broke out on the procession of a mosque in Golimar. House to house fighting was witnessed following mass attacks on mosques and imambargahs; some of these prayer places were set on fire. Into the fray entered organisations like the Shia Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Fiqah-e-Jafria (TNFJ), later rechristened the Tehrik-e Jafaria Pakistan and Swad-e-Azam. Though the leaders of both these groups belong to the people from Hazara or NWFP, they have established their bases in Karachi. This has led to an intensification of sectarian clashes in the city.
On the political front the city remained divided into three political forces: Jama’at-e Islami, Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan and Pakistan Peoples Party. These parties normally shared the seats in the Assemblies as well as in the local bodies – until, the MQM entered the scene.