No big secret

They only sit and watch. It’s not just the dark glasses that set them apart from the other pedestrians, it's also their behaviour. There is this bearded chap with a wadera getup, in crisp white cotton clothes, who shows up at around 10am each day. Motorists who regularly take the route through Club Road to get to work each day cannot miss him. First he makes a beeline for the still shuttered shop windows of Pearl Continental, then he pulls out a folded piece of paper stuck somewhere between in the folding grills and makes a big show of reading the message. That done, he sits on the stairs to spend the rest of the day watching the other hotel opposite the one outside which he sits along with his colleagues.

Once he was being forcibly pushed into an orange 1974 Toyota Corolla by another one dressed just like him. There is always something strange going on with these three or four men who have obviously been posted there to keep a watchful eye on their surroundings. But instead of noticing and keeping a record of what’s going on there, they have, in their boredom, become a spectacle themselves.

This happens to be the site where a powerful bomb killed French engineers back in May 2002. One wonders why these secret service men have to watch this very same place anticipating another terrorist attack right there. It can happen elsewhere too. And with their making themselves so obvious, it can happen on their side of the road too.—Shazia Hasan

Peace efforts

Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad’s efforts aimed at bringing about some normality in the city met with partial success recently when the Pakhtun Action Committee withdrew its three-day strike call. If the strike had been called, it could have brought the city to a standstill for full three days. The daily wage earners, whether cab drivers, bus operators or labourers, whose families depend on daily earnings, cannot afford to stay off work for such an extended period. The collective financial losses to the industry are incalculable.

The governor started holding meetings with various political party leaders and other public figures shortly after the May 12 killings. The parties he visited were as diverse as the Pakistan People’s Party and the Jamaat-i-Islami. He visited even the Sindh High Court, where he was shown in newspaper photographs as being escorted by the SHC Chief Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and other judges.

His efforts received a setback when some misguided elements scribbled graffiti on city walls, which ultimately compelled his party leadership to direct party workers to halt the campaign and remove wall-chalking against Imran Khan.

The governor also stressed the need for deweaponising the city. Incidentally, President Pervez Musharraf, while addressing a gathering at the Chief Ministrer’s House, echoed the governor’s call and asked officials to make the city weapon-free. Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, however, was more circumspect when he said it was a very difficult task, which many observers stated was impossible to implement.

It is not that the governor can dare drift away from his party line. But while staying within his party parameters, what he has been doing must be appreciated. And everybody who matters should help him in establishing a durable peace in the city.

Unfortunately, however, the city is now in the grip of another type of restlessness – power riots. If the governor moves on this front also, the harried consumers of electricity can just wish him success.

—Naseer Ahmad

These busybodies

Eager salesman pester unsuspecting citizens so often, that their requests go unheeded. However, they keep coming back armed with new marketing skills to entice their prospective clients.

Housewives, who do not want to open the door for any salesman when their hubbies are away at work, do not feel endangered by saleswomen. In fact, what we see now is that it is usually women who are hired for the job to capture the more gullible customers. They present their products with such dexterity most people could be excused for assuming that there is no other product that can beat theirs. Their greasy tongues know exactly what can capture the imagination of their clients. The other bugging group is of those who conduct surveys organised by multinational companies in order to improve their product.

But thanks to certain strict security systems in certain areas, the gatekeepers no longer allow them to venture into their territory.

However, there is yet another league of what should be called precisely “the extraordinary gentlemen and women” who can entice anyone enough to deprive them of their money. They come up with phoney schemes which they claim would win their customers a house, a plot, a kitchen set or Umrah tickets. This has been happening in the city, under the nose of the law-enforcing agencies, and nothing has been done to get hold of these robbers.

I was robbed of Rs500 luckily that’s all I had at that time — on the promise of a plot in Rawalpindi. They asked me to give them Rs5,000 in order to confirm the plot registration. They claimed that I had won the plot in a lucky draw. My housemaid informed me later that the same kind of impostors came to their area and minted money telling people that a new scheme would entitle their children to free health and education facilities.

Is it that we the Karachians are so naïve that anyone can make a fool of us? Or abject poverty and double standards in the prevailing system enfeebled our mental faculties.—Meera Jamal

Email: karachian@dawn.com