The month of May in 1971 did not have an auspicious start for Karachiites. Since the city was expanding and population was increasing at breakneck speed, crimes were on the rise accordingly. On May 3, 1971 it was reported that a couple of days back a police party was attacked by hoodlums dealing in narcotics to secure the release of their leader in the Landhi industrial area. A number of policemen were either stabbed or beaten. The police were only able to arrest seven of them. The man for whom the criminals attacked the law enforcers was snatched from police custody.

If that wasn’t enough to ring the alarm bells for the city administrators then the next news item might have. On May 6, a Pakistani man who carried forged travelers’ cheques in cahoots with a foreign mission was caught by the crimes branch of the Sindh police. He was identified as M.J. Kuraishi, an ex-executive officer (visa and public affairs) of the Royal Thai Consulate-General. A Mercedes Benz bearing diplomatic number plate was also impounded. The police seized over 1,000 forged travelers’ cheques purported to have been issued by a British American Bank, Zurich (Switzerland).

Things were looking terrible all around as later this week two incidents of fire took place. First, a salesman, Anwar, was badly burnt when a fire broke out in the shoe shop where he worked. He was admitted to Civil Hospital. The other incident happened at a petrol station in Landhi. Thankfully, no casualty was reported, but there was a considerable damage to property.

To be fair, the authorities were trying to keep an eye, with varying degrees of success, on the multidimensional problems that Karachi as a burgeoning town was faced with. On May 5, for example, to solve the issue of traffic congestion the executive committee of the Karachi Master Plan agreed in principle to build three main roads in the city and to integrate them with the overall road network of the ‘greater Karachi area’. In order to provide a bypass to the traffic in Korangi, Landhi, Defence and Clifton a thoroughfare was planned for linking Defence with Queens Road via Bath Island.

On the relatively brighter and colourful side, on May 4 an exhibition of Jamil Naqsh’s artworks at the Pakistan Art Gallery near the KESC Society office attracted the attention of art lovers and critics. This is how a critic wrote about the show: “Young and talented Jamil Naqsh has established himself as a leading figure artist of the country with a style that is all his own. This is a rare virtue… There are just a few artists who have evolved their own individuality so that their work can be recognised style- and period-wise. Naqsh is one of the brilliant exceptions who’s done original, brilliant work with his pigeons and nudes over the last decade or so. He is currently exhibiting over 60 of his new paintings which include half a dozen old canvases.”

The eminent painter passed away on May 16, 2019.

Published in Dawn, May 3rd, 2021