Daily Times

Responding to the call of the Sindh Action Committee, the people of Sindh converged at the sprawling place in front of the main gate of the Bahria Town Karachi (BTK) on June 6 to show their angst at the forcible appropriation of lands of Sindh and indigenous farming communities in a brutal way, bulldozing old villages, tubewells, orchards, vegetable fields, graveyards and places of veneration and worship for expansion of this monster project. This anger was building up since many years with video footages on the social media showing bulldozers removing villages with the active help of the Sindh police and the private security apparatus of the BTK, and villagers putting up stiff resistance, and suffering indignity and humiliation.

By all means, this was a successful and peaceful protest. The ordinary people of all ages young and old including men, women and underage children, intelligentsia, academia, intellectuals, writers, columnists, journalists, civil society, apolitical organisations were milling around at the venue along with political activists.

They were carrying water bottles, lunch boxes and packages of eatables enjoying ice cream, sliced cucumber, coconut, and meeting old friends and acquaintances. The People had filled to the brim the shaded areas under the canopies (shamianas) erected by certain Sindhi philanthropists in a row of over 500 meters.

For campaigners protesting against a serious issue that threatens their very existence in their own land — such violent commotion has, understandably, proved sufficiently poisonous to discredit and undermine their struggle

There was abundance of party flags. Political activists were dancing to their party tunes and songs. The SDP had a sizeable number of Urdu speaking members who also resorted to dance on Sindhi tunes. All this looked like a festival. At no stage or in any corner of this kilometre-long venue, there was any angry outburst. It seemed the people of Sindh have begun shaking out of the long slumber that had overwhelmed them after the MRD movement and recalling their stellar will to challenge brutality, inhumanity and encroachment on their proprietary rights.

This was the atmosphere at the place – calm and peaceful – until the sudden eruption of commotion and arson in the BTK one hour or so after we left the venue. It is really unfathomable how the arsonists managed to get inside the BTK. The main gate of the town was sealed with containers and razor wires. There was a heavy deployment of police and private security force inside the town. The Sindh Action Committee leaders, who had taken shelter at a distance from the gate, say they had disowned the miscreants calling on the police to arrest them at the outset of the commotion. Surprisingly, the police started disappearing from inside the town leaving an open field for the miscreants to vandalise the private offices of realtors at will. The police instead of overpowering the miscreants resorted to shelling and baton charging the peaceful crowd.

It is perplexing how the miscreants removed the razor wire barrier and containers with empty hands to break into the main gate. It was beyond the capacity of political activists to set fire to the iron and cement structures. From the video footages, even a man of ordinary sense can gather it was the handy work of persons trained in the use of chemicals to arson such huge iron and cement structures. The monster flames of fire were red at the lower half and utter black at the upper half. According to a nationalist leader, the flames resembled to those rising from the Baldia Factory, the Advocates’ chamber – the notorious events that reduced over 100 lives to ashes in Karachi. It is unmistakably easy to differentiate between ordinary fire sparked by paper and wood and that triggered by chemicals.

As video footages show, the crowd dispersed without much resistance to the brutality of the police and the BT security apparatus. The Sindh Action Committee leaders had no reason to spoil their successful show allowing their activists to resort to vandalism. Au contraire, succumbing to the intense shelling and concerned about their women and children who had accompanied them to the venue, they wasted no time to return to Jamshoro to call an emergency press conference.

One possibility is that some miscreants had joined the workers of a political party to undermine the peaceful protest. The moot question is who planted these agents provocateur in a political party! The answer is not so unfathomable. The other possibility is that it was a premeditated plan of BT management and their powerful patrons in Sindh to display this brutal show to intimidate nationalist leaders and nip into bud the growing awakening in Sindh witnessed unmistakably since the successful protests against the Pakistan Island Development Authority (PIDA) ordinance. One has reasons to believe this violence was stage managed by those forces which were hopeful of reaping lasting dividends out of it.

For campaigners protesting against a serious issue threatening their existence in their own land, violent commotion of this nature, understandably, was poisonous enough to discredit and undermine their struggle. What is emerging as the aftermath of the violence is that the campaign against BT has received a debilitating blow and the leaders will have to put up constant hard work to re-gather their credibility and street power to resuscitate the momentum of their campaign. This is what the conspirators wanted to achieve.

The violent event has distracted attention from the illegal appropriation of the private lands of poor villagers. The BT management, with the active connivance of a political group, tried to give the event a dangerous ethnic dimension. It seemed as if this group was just waiting in wings to turn the event to its political advantage. The statements of the leaders of this ethnic group were very provocative and could have ignited ethnic riots in the capital city had the residents of the BTK not cold shouldered them. On their second visit to BTK, the residents did not allow them to hold a presser there. For record, the non-Urdu speaking residents are in overwhelming majority in BTK.

(To be concluded)

The author was a member of the Foreign Service of Pakistan and author of two books