KARACHI: I have just talked to a very weary and disappointed ordinary citizen on the recent, rather current, wave of terrorism and crime that has hit Karachi once again. And I am trying hard to hold onto my optimism.
This wave of crime and lawlessness, as he put it, struck the city in February alone. He cited the example of the robbers who struck at the Federal B Area residence of the famous singer, Mehdi Hassan, and took away Rs2 million worth of jewellery and cash early this month. The details of this robbery reflect the ingenuity of the criminals, a point that appears so much noticeable in many of the crimes that have been committed in the metropolis.
The other incident that he highlighted is that of a rather unorthodox kind, which Dawn of Feb 17 published under the caption Bereaved son vows to find mother’s killers. This story is about a young man whose mother was murdered as she offered resistance to two young men who wanted all her cash. The incident took place behind the Ashfaq Memorial Hospital in Gulshan-i-Iqbal. The robbers got away with the booty after shooting her dead. Her son is reported to have arrived here from the United Kingdom to trace out the killers. Brave!
The pain, outrage and determination of the young man, Shaikh Fasihullah, who is said to be doing his M.Phil in Protocol Analysis Information Technology in London, is understandable. His resolve to track down his mother’s killers is commendable.
The modus operandi of criminals and terrorists appears to have assumed terribly daring dimensions, note citizens as they take their own steps to protect themselves, as best as they can in a context that is grim and scary to say the least. From the look of things it seems that grey clouds of concern and anxiety have returned. And with the advent of Moharram next week, the ordinary citizen is once again experiencing a degree of fear that he has felt previously also. Ordinary people are once again feeling insecurity that has raised its ugly head once again.
Let us quickly look at some of the major incidents that have taken place in the city during the month of February, and which mirror the depressing variety of reasons why there is lawlessness in this growing Sindh capital. One of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s leaders, Khalid bin Waleed was shot dead in an ambush in North Nazimabad; then came the shooting spree in Malir where nine persons were gunned down in seemingly sectarian violence; then another two persons were shot dead near Lighthouse in what appeared to be yet another case of target killing; and almost simultaneously there was a target killing in Federal B Area. And now comes this targeted attack outside the American Consulate General making one question the efficacy of the security measures that were in place at those premises also.
In fact, that is what one has to think about the general level of security measures that are in place, not just in Karachi but also in the rest of the country. Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali, in town currently, is reported to have directed the Ministry of Interior to improve the law and order situation by coordinating with the provinces.
According to reports, the prime minister while presiding over a cabinet meeting in Islamabad said that “without improved law and order, there could not be any meaningful business activity in the country.” The prime minister is stated to have asked the Interior Minister to visit all the four provinces, to evolve an effective strategy to improve law and order, and associate legislators with the task. One would refer here to a letter to the editor in this daily (Feb 21) by a citizen from Lahore, where the author said that there was an “alarming increase in crimes” — and he lamented that “our country is in the grip of heinous crimes, and criminals are operating freely everywhere .... the dismal law and order needs to be tackled on emergency basis and notorious criminals and their harbourers must be crushed.” This citizen talks of the point that people are living in ‘constant fear’. In passing one would also like to refer to another report appearing on Feb 20 headlined: Burglars, auto-thieves strike at nine places.
There was something of the Karachi flavour in this headline as well as in the story itself. Read the first paragraph and contemplate the way in which Pakistan’s urban places are going: “burglars and auto-thieves struck at nine different places in the twin cities, and made off with six vehicles, cash and other valuables, said police.”
Now take this headline and story from Dawn of Feb 9 which said that there were ‘seven robberies in the city’. Let’s look at the areas where these criminals had struck: they were New Karachi, then Gulshan-i-Iqbal, then Jauharabad, then Mauripur, then Arambagh, then Model Colony, and then Ferozabad. Evidently all parts of th Sindh capital are equally vulnerable to crime.
Strange and varied are indeed the ways in which one can be vulnerable in the city, and look at this incident where “bandits robbed and killed an expatriate in Korangi soon after he arrived in the city from Austria one morning.” His identity was established after much effort, from the papers he possessed, and it appeared that he was a resident of Sialkot and was working in Austria for 12 years.
This reminds one of a similar incident where another expatriate, from Jeddah, and his son arrived in Karachi, at the airport, and they were robbed after reaching home. When tried to resist, the man was killed on the spot. The robbers then escaped and, according to the report, he had evidently been chased from the airport. Even in the case of the Pakistani from Austria, the concerned police had interrogated around 30 taxi drivers, who were present at the airport since 4.30am, but none of them could recognize the man, Abdul Razzak.
All these recent incidents reported — plus accounts of some of the crimes that have been committed and terrorism in Karachi and even elsewhere, possibly serve to drive home the point that the modern Pakistani citizen, in 2003, is living in very tense environs. His vulnerability to crime and lawlessness is growing. One indication of this is that each time you tell someone a story of a crime, howsoever small, he will tell you of another crime, big or small, heard from someone or read in a newspaper.
And the interesting thing about a newspaper is that they do not have details enough each time to give it the human touch that the crime called for. That is to say that the shock that each crime exposes people to doesn’t get conveyed at all, even in the slightest, at times. That’s demonstrative of our insensitivity.
