ONE does not know whether the Karachi Control of Disorderly Persons Act still exists. It would have been great if it did. Imagine how many people would have been reined in or stopped from creating mischief in society. Well, such a thing existed in the 1960s. A news item in this newspaper on Jan 7, 1969 caught readers’ attention. It read: Sharfoo Khan, son of Kallan Khan, a resident of Landhi Colony, has been declared a disorderly person under the aforementioned act by the district magistrate, Karachi. Khan was told to furnish his fingerprints and photographs to the Landhi police station. It was not mentioned in the report that what the man had done to invite the magistrate’s ire. If he was declared disorderly, for sure it had something to do with him being either naughty or nasty.

For history buffs and peaceniks, here’s another interesting nugget of information: there used to be a Karachi All Pakistan Amity Association, whose primary aim was to come up with ways and means to strengthen ties between the eastern and western parts of the country (Bangladesh had not come into being by that time). In order to do that, it used to come up with fascinating schemes. For example, on Jan 7, incentivised by the association, a marriage between an East Pakistani man Azeemuddin and a West Pakistani woman Nasreen Iqbal took place. The association gave them a gift of prize bonds worth Rs500. A statement issued by the association’s representative read: “It is one of our objectives to strengthen inter-wing blood relations through inter-wing marriages for which the organisation offers up to Rs500 as a token gift per couple on a first-come-first-serve basis.” Wow! What an idea! Sad, the two wings of the country have parted ways.

The student community also made the headlines that week. On Jan 10, the Karachi Omnibus Service (KOB) withdrew all its buses on the Karachi University route because it apprehended damage to its vehicles by students who insisted on paying 10 paisa only for travelling any distance. A spokesman for the KOB said the service was offering 50 per cent concession to the students on university and other routes. He added the service had to withdraw its buses from the route because the students had threatened to cause damage to them if they charged more than 10 paisa for their journey from any point.

On Jan 11, the Regional Transport Corporation (RTC) made an announcement that city students would be given concessions on bus fares on the production of their identity cards on the Karachi Omnibus Service. The hitherto used monthly pass system had been abolished to simplify the procedure. Fifty per cent concession on bus fares on all RTC routes in the city had also been announced. The concession rates on the fares would be for 10, 15 and 20 paisa tickets, and the students would be charged only 10 paisa (minimum fare for each single journey). For a 25-paisa ticket, however, the discounted amount was 13 paisa and for 30- and 35-paisa tickets it was 15 and 18 paisa, respectively.

These days, we hear a lot about accountability. Fifty years back, it was applied with less severity. On Jan 11, the provincial government ordered the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) to provide a detailed account of the expenditure incurred on renovating the office of KMC chairman Pervez Ahmed Butt in August (1968). The corporation had been notified to give an item-wise list of all the purchases made for the facelift of the chairman’s room. The room was renovated and richly decorated by the outgoing chairman with a local fancy ceiling, wooden wall panels and a thick red wall-to-wall carpet with glimmering sofas to match. Mr Butt had occupied the plush room only for one day (August 18) after which he had handed over the position to Abrar Hasan Khan. The complete renovation and decoration of the office had cost the KMC nearly Rs70,000.

See, nothing has changed.

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2019