Turf war

Hundreds of security forces deployed to Karachi have been conducting raids and rounding up suspects allegedly involved in the recent spate of violence and killings in the southern port city. The violence has already claimed 800 lives this year. Some 300 were reportedly killed in July alone.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has expressed grave concern over the deteriorating law and order situation in the capital of Sindh province. It recently completed a fact-finding mission in Karachi to ascertain the causes of the current wave of violence.

"The demographic division in Karachi is changing. There is in essence a turf war," HRCP Chairperson Zohra Yusuf told Deutsche Welle. “The Pashtuns are represented by the Awami National Party (ANP) and they are gaining in strength and numbers in Karachi. The ANP gained politically in the Sindh Assembly elections and that is becoming a concern for Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM)," She explained.

"We met a whole lot of people and also had public hearings," Zohra said. "The interim findings indicate that the key to peace in Karachi lies with political parties that represent the city. The government is obviously responsible for law and order but the kind of violence that we have seen in which there has been political involvement that can only be resolved by the political representatives themselves."

Fight for supremacy

Apart from all the problems of a big city such as crime and shortage of resources, Karachi, which is home to more than 18 million people, has a long history of ethnic, religious and sectarian violence.

Following the subcontinent's partition, thousands of Urdu-speaking Muslim migrants from India settled in the port city, transforming the demographics. In the 1970s, there was tension between the Muhajirs and native Sindhis. In the 1980s, Altaf Hussain launched the Muhajir Quami Movement (MQM) to protect the Muhajir community who perceived themselves as victims of discrimination and repression.

This later became known as the Muttahida Quami Movement and initially it enjoyed "total control" over Karachi but with the influx of Pashtuns from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and from the Federal Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) where the army has been conducting operations against militants there has been another change in demographics over the past decade.

Crime is rife in Pakistan’s economic hub

Karachi is Pakistan's financial and economic hub, contributing more than 60 percent of the country’s tax revenues. Kidnapping for ransom and armed robbery are also rife in the city.

"Political parties are increasingly getting criminalized and criminals have entered the political process," Yusuf explained. "Each party exercises a certain amount of financial control over the area that has its influence on in terms of extortion, land grabbing. That has added to the volatility of the situation here."

"We spoke to higher police officials who said that the militants are also associated with political parties and each party seems to have a militant wing," She said. "They said the militants are better equipped than the police, and have sophisticated weapons."

Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik has said that the government has taken steps to clear out stockpiles of illegal weapons by cancelling all firearm licenses at the end of the month, forcing owners to reapply.

He has promised that from September anyone caught with a weapon with the old licenses will be dealt with seriously and the government action will bring permanent peace to Karachi.

However, previous government promises to confiscate stockpiles of unlicensed weapons in Karachi have come to nothing. Zohra Yusuf believes that the political parties will need to reach an agreement on an effective "de-weaponization" program. She says they have to disarm their own people if they really care about peace.

Author: Sachin Gaur
Editor: Anne Thomas