ABDUL Razzaq Buneri, an Awami National Party (ANP) leader and Pakhtun trader, refused to pay Rs20 million to the Pakistani Taliban after he received numerous threatening telephone calls which were traced to Afghanistan and North Waziristan.

Recently, the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) killed two police personnel in charge of his security; and his home and business in Karachi were targeted twice in three months. Although ANP politicians have chosen to lie low in Karachi’s Pakhtun-dominated areas, they have been intimidated into leaving their constituencies, their offices forcibly closed and their leaders murdered.

By attacking local ANP leaders and Pakhtun elders, extorting and threatening residents and businesses, and forming parallel courts providing rough justice in exchange for support, the TTP is consolidating its hold over parts of Karachi. Aqeel Yousafzai, a Peshawar-based security analyst, explains that killing influential Pakhtun elders is a key Taliban strategy, initially successful in Afghanistan, then Fata and KP and now happening in Karachi. Previous infighting between Hakimullah Mehsud’s Karachi faction and the hardline Waliur Rehman group, the latter which attacked ANP activists, also resulted in much violence in these areas.

Shahi Syed, ANP’s president in Sindh, concurs. With more than 800 workers killed between 2008 and 2013 in Pakistan, including over 60 in the last three years in Karachi, he explains that his party is a target because they had initially opposed the Taliban’s ideology, as they believe in Bacha Khan’s philosophy of non-violence.

According to a TTP militant from the Khan Saeed faction in Sohrab Goth, “We target specific traders, especially from the ANP, and collect money from them or those who make money through illicit means,” he says on condition of anonymity. He confirms that the TTP shura decided to target liberal political parties, including the ANP, for their secular doctrine and also because they were responsible for offensives against the TTP in Swat and districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Over the last two years the TTP has shifted its strategy to territorial control, becoming increasingly involved in the city’s turf wars, thus adopting the modus operandi of its more secular rivals — something which, incidentally, had already been practised by sectarian organisations, particularly in North Karachi.

According to French analyst Laurent Gayer, there exists a blueprint for unofficial governance involving the coercive exploitation of economic rents, and the provision of public services, either by rebooting public institutions or by setting up de facto bodies providing health services, justice, and security.

However, while TTP affiliates from South Waziristan, Swat (Mullah Fazlullah faction responsible for killing ANP leaders) and Mohmand Agency (with extortion expertise) may wield power in certain townships by forming organisational networks and relationships with local militant groups, it is hugely unlikely that this would translate into votes or a solid support base.

Explaining that the TTP in any case has no political ambitions in urban centres, and continues to use Karachi mainly for fundraising, Muhammad Amir Rana, director at the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, says its activities could be controlled if provincial governments had larger security budgets.

In several Pakhtun townships, the TTP, with its illicit enforcement authority, is virtually the only decision-maker. Local residents say almost nothing gets done without its nod. Protection money rackets previously exclusive to certain political parties have multiplied since 2000, with competitive players fundraising for both the Pakistani and the Afghan Taliban. The TTP has also penetrated lucrative businesses, particularly in Sohrab Goth, forcibly imposing flat rates to eliminate competition among transporters, in order to receive regular hefty commissions.

The police, for their part, claim that Karachi’s diverse population poses tough challenges. With the Pakhtun community constituting 22pc of the population, the TTP finds ethnic sanctuaries in a city policed by under-resourced and ill-trained personnel. “It is difficult to identify and arrest high-level Taliban commanders living in rented homes in Defence, Gulshan-i-Iqbal and Nazimabad. Home to over one million illegal immigrants Karachi allows the TTP to disappear without a trace. We don’t have a defined database to identify terrorists, like Nadra,” says Karachi police spokesperson Imran Shaukat.

Although the police lost more than 200 officers to violence in 2013, the fact that law enforcement agencies have largely failed to bring the perpetrators to account is partly because witnesses are threatened in court and with no witness protection programme, there is little chance of successful prosecutions.

So where do we go from here? As the distance between governance, policing, economic progress and urban militancy decreases, we need steadfast political will, a counterterrorism budget and a few good men to clean up the mess.

The writer is a journalist.

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