IT has been 11 years since Karachi was held hostage and witnessed much bloodshed on its streets.

The reason behind the May 12, 2007, violence was the thwarted visit of the then deposed chief justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Chaudhry.

The MQM — then a united and much more powerful entity than it is today — practically controlled the Sindh government and wanted to prevent the judge from reaching a reception arranged in his honour by members of the bar.

This was being done in order to please the military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf, the Muttahida’s political patron.

However, the MQM’s foes in Sindh — principally the PPP and the ANP — wanted to welcome the judge and had arranged rallies to receive him.

What resulted was an ugly power play.

By the end of the day at least 50 people had died and 100 were injured, while Mr Chaudhry was unable to leave Karachi airport as the streets of the metropolis became a battleground.

However, despite the passage of over a decade, and the change of several governments at the centre and in Sindh, the perpetrators of the May 12 violence have not been brought to justice.

In fact, as reported in this paper on Saturday, the cases are still at the pre-trial stage.

Several reasons have been noted for the absence of progress in the cases, including the state’s lack of interest and lethargy at the police’s end.

This is so despite the fact that an apparently ‘crucial’ piece of evidence — a confessional statement by an MQM lawmaker — has been recorded.

Apart from the state’s slothful attitude towards bringing to justice those involved in one of Karachi’s bloodiest episodes, it also shows how the rulers can use political militants to their advantage, and later, disown and discard them.

As mentioned above, the MQM enjoyed vast powers at the time, with ministers in the Sindh government and a powerful political patron at the centre.

The Muttahida was used as a key tool to unleash mayhem in the metropolis — though armed wings of other parties also participated in the violence.

However, the party dramatically fell out of favour with the powers that be following the 2015 raid on its headquarters.

The PPP also needs to answer the question of why it has done so little to bring May 12’s perpetrators to justice.

It has used May 12 as a rallying cry, but the Sindh government has done very little to speed up the investigations.

Published in Dawn, May 14th, 2018