In a recent editorial in this newspaper titled "When will it all end?", the leader writer asked: "When will the curse that appears to have settled on Karachi be lifted?"

In truth, there is nothing supernatural about the fratricidal mayhem taking place in our city. The killers are ruthless men without conscience or a shred of decency, and the victims are innocent people who were at the wrong place at the wrong time.

There is no "hidden hand" either: the murderers belong to indigenous, home-grown groups known to the intelligence agencies, and many of them have links with political parties.

In a recent BBC interview, reference was made to the information minister's statement to the effect that General Musharraf was considering "stern measures" to curb sectarian violence. The interviewer pointed out that the general had made many such promises in the past, but nothing had changed.

One problem is that the entire law-enforcement machinery is in such shambles that any two-bit thug can commit a crime of violence and reasonably expect to get away with it.

And if he is miraculously arrested, he can be pretty sure that he will get bail and be free to continue with his career. By the time his case comes up for hearing, he will have had plenty of time to frighten any witnesses into changing their testimony.

This deterioration of crime detection and punishment has been steady and progressive: we have now reached a point where many judges are scared to try those accused of terrorism. The state is unable to protect them, as evident from the number of judges (and lawyers) who have been attacked in recent years.

In countries free of such systematic and sustained terrorism, the state has retained a virtual monopoly on violence. Weapons, especially automatic ones, are very difficult to come by.

The sale of explosives is tightly monitored. And offenders are strictly dealt with. America is the only developed nation with very lax gun control laws, and for this reason, it has a high incidence of gun-related crimes. But extremist groups are closely watched.

In Pakistan, by contrast, the state lost its monopoly on violence a very long time ago. Indeed, the "autonomy" granted to the tribal areas in Balochistan and the NWFP was a sure-fire formula for anarchy.

The legal right to carry unlicensed weapons, and the presence of weapons centres like Darra, meant that a large number of Pakistanis were free to resort to guns to settle disputes. In normal countries, resolving such matters is the exclusive preserve of the state.

While it might have been politically expedient to accept the status of the tribal areas in the early days of Pakistan, no government has ever made an effort to end this anarchic state of affairs. The result is that tribals in Wana can now successfully take on the Pakistan army and inflict heavy casualties with their modern arsenal.

During the Afghan war, the weaponization of Pakistan accelerated, for it was during this period that ethnic and sectarian outfits like the MQM and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi were set up with Ziaul Haq's blessings. While the dictator's agenda revolved around his political survival, the armed and dangerous groups he left behind as his legacy have grown and mushroomed.

Today, terrorism in Pakistan is of ethnic, sectarian and political dimensions. Different groups have different targets, and many of their gunmen freelance as killers who can be hired to settle scores or for straight monetary gains. The lethal permutations here are virtually infinite. The Shia-Sunni slaughter alone has claimed 4,000 lives in the last 15 years.

Another reason for the seemingly unchecked growth of these organizations is that many of the Sunni outfits were used by successive governments to further Pakistan's perceived interests in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

Many of us had been warning of Pakistan's creeping Talibanization for years, but delusions of "strategic depth" convinced the authors of such half-baked strategies that this was a price worth paying.

Two years after the Taliban were kicked out of Kabul, we are still having to suffer the depredations of the same pro-Taliban elements who flocked to their banner in Afghanistan.

Similarly, while we have officially pledged not to permit terrorists to infiltrate into Indian-held Kashmir, nothing has been done to clamp down on them in Pakistan.

Having used them to further official policy, the government finds it very difficult to lock them up and proceed against them. Intelligence agencies have dossiers on all these groups, but their official handlers have developed close links with these terrorists, and are thus reluctant to arrest them.

The pervasive miasma of officially-inspired piety, together with the rapid proliferation of madrassahs is another major factor in the rise of sectarian violence. Thousands of young men graduate from these seminaries every year, unequipped to find jobs in the real world.

Many of them are recruited by jihadi gangs, and are soon trained and brainwashed to attack whatever target their cynical leaders designate. Convinced that their acts of violence will win them a place in paradise, they are not very different from the original Assassins led by Hasan bin Sabbah in the 11th and 12th centuries from his mountain redoubt of Alamut.

Why is Karachi the hub of terrorism? Perhaps because it is a microcosm of the beliefs, peoples and tensions that make up Pakistan. As an enormous metropolis with vast slums, it is easy for shadowy killers to melt into the anonymous crowds that inhabit the city. Then, too, it is the commercial centre of the country, and money attracts criminals the way honey attracts bees.

So what can this (or any other) government do to crush this menace? Well, Musharraf could consider taking a leaf from the Mongols' book as they set out to eradicate the powerful Assassins.

This sect, in its active lifetime of 150 years, had sent out its killers to many capitals where they eliminated those deemed harmful to its interests. They inspired fear as hashish-fuelled assassins (the word comes from their use of the drug), brainwashed into believing that by carrying out their assignment they would go straight to heaven, committed the most daring murders.

Halaku attacked Alamut in 1256, forcing the Assassin Grand Master Rukn al-Din to surrender. He was executed almost immediately. Four years later, the Mamluk Sultan Baibars wiped out the Assassin hill-fortresses in Syria, ending this menace forever. The Mongols had decided that enough was enough, and marshalled all the resources needed to eliminate these killers.

Basically, they summoned up the necessary political will to see the task through from start to finish. This is what Musharraf needs to demonstrate now if he is serious about wanting to end the country's distress at the hands of vicious killers.