KARACHI: Things are back to normal. Or so it seems. After the commotion and chaos on Monday evening around the Karachi Press Club, the area cut a ‘normal’ picture on Tuesday morning. Things were back to the way they were, only with a shift in the people who had inhabited the zone in the last few days. The hunger strikers were replaced by another, much smaller, set of people. They are schoolteachers from Qambar Shahdadpur, protesting outside the club against the authorities concerned for not giving them salaries.

There was a bevy of vehicles parked on both sides of the road. They belonged to those who work in offices housed in buildings facing the club. Moving ahead a bit to hit M. R. Kayani Road and to turn left towards the Zainab market vicinity, a couple of big dark black patches on the road, despite the normality of the goings-on, point to something terrible that happened recently. They are the traces of the tyres and cars that were burnt on Aug 22.

The building where the offices of a TV channel are situated which was vandalised by workers of a political party on Monday too stands in peace. The camera crew of a TV channel filmed a report on Tuesday at 11.30am against the backdrop of the famous market, telling the visitors that the situation was under control.

A police mobile van was parked near the entrance to the building and another could be seen patrolling around the Kabootar Chowk, the sight of unbridled hooliganism on that unfortunate day. An armoured vehicle stands still beside the paanwallah next to the front gate to the press club. The law enforcement personnel looked less worried. Inside the club, journalists resumed taking their respective spots on the terrace, chatting away. It’s all back to normal.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2016