KARACHI: Violence has revisited Karachi with full force. At least 13 people have been killed in the city since Monday, including four young men gunned down in apparent sectarian attacks. Among the victims are also four policemen. Although the Rangers-led Karachi operation has had an appreciable impact on the city’s murder rate in general (this includes murder based on personal enmity or during the commission of a crime, etc), which has dropped by around 40 per cent according to senior police sources, the recent killings illustrate that this comparative improvement is extremely tenuous.

During the course of the operation, political and ethnic killings have shown a significant decline albeit the graph of sectarian killings has not fallen to the same extent. The murder of policemen in the city continues around the same pace as before, with 171 taking place last year and 96 in the period from January to July 2014.

“Sectarian murders are being carried out as a point-scoring strategy by extremists on both sides,” said Ahmed Chinoy, the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee chief. “This is not for money. Also, many militants have their strongholds in illegal settlements on the outskirts of the city; these are huge areas where we can’t keep a check on flow of weapons or influx of militants from other parts of the country.”

Moreover, according to DIG-South Abdul Khalique Shaikh, the ‘hands-off’ policy regarding certain hard-line madressahs undermines efforts to control religious militancy. “There’s no search of such madressahs and militants know they can take shelter and keep weapons there.”

Enhanced, coordinated intelligence across provincial borders is crucial to curbing religious extremism in Karachi, said Jameel Yusuf, a former CPLC chief. “Terrorism, including sectarianism, cannot be effectively tackled without the activation of the National Counter Terrorism Authority and its provincial counterparts. Sectarian organisations like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi are based in Punjab while their activists operate in Karachi. We need to track their movements and monitor them.”

Still, there has been some drop registered in sectarian killings. This can be attributed, say law enforcement officials, to the arrest of members of extremist groups — both Sunni and Shia — during the operation.

Several analysts maintain that this is also on account of the large number of political activists that have been taken off the streets. “Some of them also engaged in sectarian killings, either because of ideological leanings or for political ends,” explained a senior police official, who declined to be named. “It serves [certain political forces] to demonstrate that without involving them there can be no peace in the city.”

According to this official, in several instances, digital forensics analysis has determined that the same weapon was used to murder both Sunnis and Shias on ostensibly sectarian lines. “There are wheels within wheels where the violence in Karachi is concerned. The latest spate could also be linked to the protest marches in Islamabad, in order to put more pressure on the central government.”

The unrelenting pace of killings of policemen — which actually touched 25 in January this year alone — speaks to the viciousness of the conflict that is raging in Karachi between militants of all stripes and law enforcement personnel.

“Demoralising the police force is part and parcel of terrorism,” said Mr Yusuf. “It’s a tragedy that hardly any of these cases are being pursued. The value of a cop is now Rs2 million in compensation dues but it’s a huge loss to the state in terms of training and manpower.”

The limitations of the Karachi police are a significant factor in the continued existence of militants’ safe havens in parts of the city despite numerous joint Rangers and police raids which have resulted in a large number of arrests as well as some killings of alleged terrorists in encounters.

According to a security expert, who requested anonymity, “The Rangers enter ‘no-go’ areas in convoys of 20 vehicles with mobile jammers, etc. The local police on the other hand have one mobile, with only seven litres of fuel allowance per day.”

All said and done, to make a far-reaching, sustainable improvement in Karachi’s crime graph, there is no substitute for a well-equipped and depoliticised police force. For this city of 20 million, Pakistan’s financial and economic centre, that is yet to happen.

Published in Dawn, August 20th, 2014