Now Pakistan Is Really Bleeding
Muhammad Khurshid
May 01, 2009
The corrupt rulers of Pakistan have put the very integrity of Pakistan in danger as the violence erupted in various parts of the country has been affecting the innocent people. Actually an effort is being made to pave the way for a bloody revolution in Pakistan on the pattern of Iran. The rulers have been playing into the hands of terrorists. Fighting is going in various parts of tribal areas and North West Frontier Province. According to reports, hundrends of people have been killed in the fighting. One million people have been forced to leave their homes. Now they have been living in the refugee camps. Violence has also erupted in the biggest city of Pakistan Karachi. There is possibility that the violence may spread to the whole country as terrorists have also been keeping eyes on the biggest province of Pakistan, Punjab.
According to an editorial comment of a leading newspaper, after the Wednesday killing of two MQM workers in the northern part of Karachi, bikers went on a spree of murders in Khwaja Ajmer Nagri, Surjani Town and New Karachi Industrial Area. Till the last news, around 30 people had been killed and many more wounded while dozens of vehicles and small shops were set on fire. The situation has forced the government to close all educational institutions in the city. Karachi is once again in the grip of complex violence, but this time it was precisely predicted before it happened.
All the three parties in the ruling alliance in Sindh have lost men from their communities. The MQM and the ANP were supposed to be on the warpath, but even Sindhis have been murdered, which must adversely impact the PPP´s stance of being a neutral and honest broker in the dispute. The Rangers have sent in their commandos and arrested a number of people taking part in the violence. The Rangers´ commander says rightly that the violence can end if the three political parties cooperate. This points to the ethnic nature of the current round of violence.
The Sindh ANP leader has spoken about a "foreign hand". What did he mean by that? Does he have evidence of the involvement of any hostile intelligence agency acting as agent provocateur or was it the usual knee-jerk reaction that unfortunately finds ready resonance in Pakistan when any violent incident has to be obfuscated? The ANP does not point to the Taliban these days as a policy; therefore, the Pashtun leader in Karachi could not have been laying it at the door of Baitullah Mehsud. On the other hand, the MQM has been constantly issuing warnings about a Taliban invasion of Karachi. For his part Baitullah Mehsud has publicly boasted that he would take over Karachi too one day.
But the MQM is a controversial entity in Karachi. Its warnings have been dismissed as needless alarmism by those who oppose its politics and strong-arm methods. The provincial home minister has said there is no threat from the Taliban; and the ANP is compelled to represent all Pashtuns in Karachi because of the vulnerable situation of all the peace-loving and hardworking migrants from the NWFP and the tribal areas. Yet there is no doubt that some Pashtuns in Karachi look to the Taliban as their redeemers in the middle of a number of alienated communities. This was proved this week when neighbourhood jiziya-demanding Pashtuns beat up and wounded a number of Christians in Tiasar Town in the Surjani area, a place where the latest bout of violence has unfolded.
Reference has cropped up also to the "land mafia" and the brawling gangs of criminals in such places as Liyari. There is no doubt that both these elements have caused violence in the past but in the current situation they may only be playing a marginal role. The possibility of someone hiring criminals to do drive-by motorcycle killings cannot be ruled out, but all signs and tokens in Wednesday´s killing spree point to the persisting tensions between the MQM on the one hand and the ANP and the PPP on the other. The last two have stood together on the matter of introducing "shariat" in Swat while the MQM has been the only party refusing to vote for Nizam-e-Adl in the National Assembly.
The nexus with the Taliban doesn´t have to be proved. Evidence of it has been forthcoming in the past, but the problem is made complex when all Pashtuns are lumped together and suspected of being linked to the forces of Baitullah Mehsud. Since there is considerable ghettoisation in the mega-city, the mere fact of living together in a state of siege forces the mixing-up of the criminal with the political.
This is complicated further by the dominant Deobandi seminaries in Karachi who sympathise with the shariat aspects of Taliban activity in the tribal areas. In the face of all this, the police establishment in Karachi is too small, too ill-trained and too ill-paid to take on the challenge of pacifying the city´s fully armed groups. There are many things that should have been taken in hand but our politicians were busy doing less dignified things under General Pervez Musharraf. They can be taken in hand now. *
The End
According to an editorial comment of a leading newspaper, after the Wednesday killing of two MQM workers in the northern part of Karachi, bikers went on a spree of murders in Khwaja Ajmer Nagri, Surjani Town and New Karachi Industrial Area. Till the last news, around 30 people had been killed and many more wounded while dozens of vehicles and small shops were set on fire. The situation has forced the government to close all educational institutions in the city. Karachi is once again in the grip of complex violence, but this time it was precisely predicted before it happened.
All the three parties in the ruling alliance in Sindh have lost men from their communities. The MQM and the ANP were supposed to be on the warpath, but even Sindhis have been murdered, which must adversely impact the PPP´s stance of being a neutral and honest broker in the dispute. The Rangers have sent in their commandos and arrested a number of people taking part in the violence. The Rangers´ commander says rightly that the violence can end if the three political parties cooperate. This points to the ethnic nature of the current round of violence.
The Sindh ANP leader has spoken about a "foreign hand". What did he mean by that? Does he have evidence of the involvement of any hostile intelligence agency acting as agent provocateur or was it the usual knee-jerk reaction that unfortunately finds ready resonance in Pakistan when any violent incident has to be obfuscated? The ANP does not point to the Taliban these days as a policy; therefore, the Pashtun leader in Karachi could not have been laying it at the door of Baitullah Mehsud. On the other hand, the MQM has been constantly issuing warnings about a Taliban invasion of Karachi. For his part Baitullah Mehsud has publicly boasted that he would take over Karachi too one day.
But the MQM is a controversial entity in Karachi. Its warnings have been dismissed as needless alarmism by those who oppose its politics and strong-arm methods. The provincial home minister has said there is no threat from the Taliban; and the ANP is compelled to represent all Pashtuns in Karachi because of the vulnerable situation of all the peace-loving and hardworking migrants from the NWFP and the tribal areas. Yet there is no doubt that some Pashtuns in Karachi look to the Taliban as their redeemers in the middle of a number of alienated communities. This was proved this week when neighbourhood jiziya-demanding Pashtuns beat up and wounded a number of Christians in Tiasar Town in the Surjani area, a place where the latest bout of violence has unfolded.
Reference has cropped up also to the "land mafia" and the brawling gangs of criminals in such places as Liyari. There is no doubt that both these elements have caused violence in the past but in the current situation they may only be playing a marginal role. The possibility of someone hiring criminals to do drive-by motorcycle killings cannot be ruled out, but all signs and tokens in Wednesday´s killing spree point to the persisting tensions between the MQM on the one hand and the ANP and the PPP on the other. The last two have stood together on the matter of introducing "shariat" in Swat while the MQM has been the only party refusing to vote for Nizam-e-Adl in the National Assembly.
The nexus with the Taliban doesn´t have to be proved. Evidence of it has been forthcoming in the past, but the problem is made complex when all Pashtuns are lumped together and suspected of being linked to the forces of Baitullah Mehsud. Since there is considerable ghettoisation in the mega-city, the mere fact of living together in a state of siege forces the mixing-up of the criminal with the political.
This is complicated further by the dominant Deobandi seminaries in Karachi who sympathise with the shariat aspects of Taliban activity in the tribal areas. In the face of all this, the police establishment in Karachi is too small, too ill-trained and too ill-paid to take on the challenge of pacifying the city´s fully armed groups. There are many things that should have been taken in hand but our politicians were busy doing less dignified things under General Pervez Musharraf. They can be taken in hand now. *
The End