Even for a city long inured to violence as Karachi, the past few days have been particularly bloody.

Over a dozen people have been murdered in several separate incidents, including four policemen, at least three of whom were believed to have been targeted by members of the banned TTP in retaliation for a police raid carried out the day before in which two of their comrades were killed in encounters.

The relentless targeting of policemen — 112 this year alone — is indicative not only of the ruthless nature of the adversary but also of the militants’ tenacious foothold in this city of 20 million. The past few years have seen vast, unregulated settlements proliferating on its outskirts with connivance of local land mafias; these provide safe havens that have become a reservoir for all manner of crime.

But there are also pockets in areas of the ‘city proper’, such as Lyari and Gulistan-i-Jauhar, which have become infested with TTP-affiliated elements that share the organisation’s extremist ideology and anti-state agenda.

Although violence by militants has of late been sporadic and taken the form of targeted killings, the continued existence of their strongholds and networks means they retain the capability to launch devastation on a wide scale, such as in the Karachi airport attack in June.

The recent spate of violence has also exposed the limitations of the much-vaunted Rangers-led Karachi operation that began in September 2013. The requisite political will, finally, it seemed, was there with the federal government throwing its weight behind a decisive campaign to tackle Karachi’s spiralling crime graph.

Indeed, within a few months, significant improvement was recorded: the overall crime rate dropped by 50pc and ethnic and political murders declined sharply. But sectarian killings, although less than before, continued to claim lives at a steady rate, a fact that was once again underlined this week with at least four deaths.

Senior law-enforcement officials concede that results from the Karachi operation have plateaued. The grim reality is that what must be the first line of defence in such a situation, the city police, is a demoralised, under-resourced force, beholden to mercurial political masters, and ill-equipped on all fronts to handle the monumental task before it.

And what of the political forces and administrative bodies that are supposedly the custodians of this benighted city?

Their wilful neglect of essential services and their no-holds-barred opportunism in pursuance of short-term gains has played havoc with Karachi’s dynamics and helped various mafias entrench themselves. And while they engage in ‘beautifying’ its skyline by building high-rises and commercial complexes in upmarket areas, ordinary citizens living ordinary lives continue to pay the price.

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2014