Daily Times

Some 800 people have been killed in Karachi in the last seven months of 2011. This translates into about 113 people a month and roughly four people a day. Now, any crime statistician or dodgy bureaucrat/politician would turn around and try to underplay the blood bath by claiming that, for a city with a population of over 15 million, the average homicide of four people is not unnatural when compared with other mega-cities of the world.

But the real story is very different. Last month, 325 people were killed following the political conflict between the coalition parties. All major political parties are to be blamed for these wanton killings. Most of these 800 people died in spurts of violence, which have been politically motivated (as explained in my column a couple of weeks back).

Now, once again, there are reports that ‘reconciliation master’ President Zardari is trying to bring back the MQM by bargaining on the future local bodies’ structure and adjustment of seats in the national and provincial assemblies. Some insiders are saying that the PPP and ANP want to cut down the MQM to its 1990s election position when they had only 12 National Assembly (NA) seats. Now, obviously, the MQM, which has 25 NA seats at present, will not accept such a situation where it is cut down by half. The probable situation that may emerge, if delimitation of constituencies in Karachi and Hyderabad is fair and elections are held honestly, is that the MQM may lose a few seats but will still be likely to have around 20 seats.

In the local bodies, the PPP will have to back-step if it wants the MQM to return to the coalition. There are already signs of reconciliation. The PPP has left limited manoeuvring space for the MQM by getting three bills passed in the provincial assembly, bringing back the commissionerate system and reverting back to the 1979 local bodies’ law. To secure their position, the MQM has to now bargain from a disadvantageous position. At the same time, after an exchange of fiery speeches amongst the leaders of both parties and real firing amongst the workers, a return to the coalition would be damaging for the MQM. But then they have a cult or — one can call it — charismatic leadership, which has the power to sway its following from one extreme position to another.

Most non-partisan Karachites are flabbergasted at how their leaders can mingle and embrace each other smilingly when just a couple of days back their speeches led to so many killings, the killers unknown to the people, killing unknown persons. To claim persecution, political parties are quick to own the dead but nobody claims responsibility for these killings. The killers and arsonists always remain unknown. This tragedy is being powerfully narrated by our fiction writers also. A recent short story, Na Maloom Shakhs (Unknown Person) by Najmul Hasan Rizvi, published in the Urdu literary magazine Ajmaal, says it all. It tells of how the poor and lower middle class youth fit into the shoes of all youngsters who are unknown killers acting on the orders of their unknown masters. Karachiites’ guess is right: the masters belong to all major and minor parties who dine, if not wine, together in the evenings. Those who are killed are low level party workers or random ethnic and sectarian victims. So wanton is the killing spree that even a teenage scavenger was killed because he was collecting garbage on Karachi’s streets.

Every Karachiite is worried and exhausted now. There are more Karachiites who are on sleeping pills and anti-depressants or reaching out to psychiatrists than inhabitants of any other major city. Peshawar may be an exception.

The leaders of the two warring political parties have called for the army’s intervention. In any case, Pakistan has the largest peace keeping contingent in the UN peace crop, so why not do the same at home? The issue is this: how long can the over-stretched army live in the Karachi jungle?

Senior policemen and bureaucrats, both in service and retired, say that there is nothing the army can do and the police cannot. The only thing is that the police have to be backed by the political will of the government. “A free hand should be given to the police and local administration and interference from the top to spare the culprits because of their political backing should be stopped,” former Chief Secretary Javed Ashraf told me the other day. I would like to add that police officials should also be told that action will be taken against them if they fail to deliver results.

The other weakling in the government structure all over the country is the ‘prosecution.’ We have seen that in most cases, whether they are of political and sectarian killings or of terrorism, the culprits are released by the courts. Some of the major reasons for the release of most wanted criminals are: in the absence of a witness protection programme people are too afraid to stand up in court — in the high-profile murder case of young reporter Wali Babar two witnesses were killed — judges are threatened and the courts are filled by the supporters of the murderers, for instance the Salmaan Taseer case, the evidence laws in Pakistan are antiquated and there seems to be no urgency on the part of the government to amend or change them — electronic evidence is not admissible — and the prosecution wing of the police is full of inefficient and corrupt officials who at times leave deliberate loopholes in the case so that the court is helpless to convict.

There is a growing realisation in the judiciary and the senior police and army agencies that the rate of conviction in such cases is a nugatory one percent. So when the Voice of America asked me how the Americans could help, my immediate reply was that they ought to work with the Pakistani government to develop effective criminal laws and prosecution abilities.

To cut the long and bloody Karachi killings story short, all we need is political will to curb the killings in the city. I know this is a tall demand from an opportunist government. Power politics is more important for it than the blood of the people. Why not? Most of those who are killed are faceless nobodies.

The writer can be reached at ayazbabar@gmail.com