Karachi is Pakistan’s only metropolitan city, despite other cities having being designated as metropolitan areas for the purposes of local government, and has overwhelming numbers of population that belong to all segments of Pakistani society. It is known as the largest Pashtun city in the world: the city hosts more Pashtuns than any other city in the world, even in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, or Afghanistan, the traditional Pashtun homeland. Rural-to-urban migration in Sindh has always been directed more towards Karachi than towards Hyderabad or other settled cities because of the vast, multidimensional economic opportunities it affords to its residents. And just as the importance of Karachi’s economy cannot be understated for the daily or monthly livelihood of a Karachi citizen, the same cannot be underemphasized for the economy of Pakistan, and more importantly, its tax base and tax revenues (since most industries, company head offices and MNC stations are still based in Karachi, as opposed to the federal capital of Islamabad, or even Lahore). Despite the exorbitant spike in violence against citizens over the past 5-to-10 years, the city keeps humming and the resilient residents of Karachi continue to go about their daily lives – forever under the shadow of instant death, or the specter of something worse (like kidnapping, or torture). No less than a dozen citizens of Karachi die every day – every single day – in violent, crime-related incidents, and the city’s yearly crime statistics are horrific: under the previous PPP government, which has its home base in Sindh since its formation, the city’s yearly crime statistics registered between 2,000 and 3,000 deaths, with the highest being 2,500 reported deaths in 2012 – noted as the “bloodiest year in Karachi so far”. The daily statistics alone show that over a hundred people die in Karachi every month because of crime alone. And crime in Karachi is not a simple phenomenon to explain: poverty, inequality and easy access to unregistered weaponry is compounded by the fact that ethnic, political, and even economic rivalries can lead to a spike in violence, often targeting a specific community or people from a particular ethnic or religious background. With all the troubles Pakistan is facing – and has been facing since 2001 – Karachi is truly the melting pot which represents a cross-section of all those problems; but the melting pot is bubbling and ready to burst because ineffective policing (mainly due to politicized hiring at the lower cadres) and citizens’ disenchantment with existing governance mechanisms have transformed the melting pot into a powder keg on a haystack. All it needs is someone to light a match and throw it in the wrong direction – and there are many who possess the matchbox.
Sources in the security apparatus deployed in Karachi, including the Rangers, and in the intelligence community say that Karachi is the typical example of a city wrought by proxy warfare in what they call the “New Great Game”: an intricate web of alliances and enmities at the global, regional, and local level that ultimately translates into Pakistanis killing Pakistanis for a variety of motives. Sometimes violent crime is driven by covert, vested political motives (which acquired an ethnic dimension when the MQM – dominated by “Mohajirs”, or immigrants of the 1947 Partition of India – and the ANP – the representative party of the Pashtuns – locked horns and blamed each other for “turf wars” over land and economic gains); other times, it is conducted and perpetuated purely by economic motivations (such as extortion, which has a specific colloquial reference in Karachi: “bhatta”) which affect shopkeepers, small traders, and even industrialists and multi-millionaire businessmen. The lack of effective policing – or the absence of an even-handed justice system that does not bend to political or economic power when being implemented – has led to the creation of many small militias that either protect a certain target or personality, or, on the other hand, target another entity that opposes them or harbors animosity towards them.
Despite the PPP’s consistent political base in Sindh, the provincial capital, Karachi, has – for the past few decades – been dominated by the MQM, which represents the interests of the Mohajir community, and maintains an effective presence in almost all areas of the city in an extremely organized fashion: the party’s local structure is devolved into sectors and units, each of which is charged with protecting the party’s interest in their area of operations, and with the public relations affairs of the party in terms of keeping it sensitized to local affairs and matters that affect the communities of Karachi. Despite city-wide military operations in the 1990’s and the splintering of the group/political party into various factions (the MQM changed its name from “Mohajir Qaumi Movement” to “Muttahida Qaumi Movement”, while other groups such as “Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi”, or MQM-H, and “Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Afaq”, or MQM-A led by Afaq Ahmed, sprang up), a significant dent in the MQM’s popularity is yet to be seen in Karachi: the recent “stepping up” of investigations into Dr. Imran Farooq’s death (under suspicious circumstances) by Scotland Yard in the UK, and the recovery of weapons as well as felons (target killers, criminals, and other anti-social elements) from the Karachi offices of the MQM have been labeled a “witch hunt” and “conspiracy” against the party. The party’s policy and day-to-day running is directed from Edgware Road in London (via the Sindh Governor’s House, with the office occupied by MQM’s Ishrat-ul-Ibad Khan since December 2002), where the MQM International Secretariat serves as the office for the party’s leader-in-self-exile, Altaf Hussain, popularly known as “Altaf bhai” within the party as well as all over Karachi. The term “Altaf bhai” is – as the party claims – a reference to the fact that the MQM is not a feudal or status quo party, where leadership depends on money and/or land holdings, and that the party is driven by merit and performance of its workers, whose political campaigns are paid for by the party and not by the candidates themselves (as is the case with other mainstream parties in Pakistan); however, the fact that the term “bhai” in South Asia also has a criminal tag or “gangster” element attached to it cannot be ignored (the term “bhai” is used for high-profile gangsters in both India and Pakistan, and has been popularized by India’s massive movie industry, “Bollywood”). In spite of all this negative publicity, the MQM still retains the power (if not the real popularity) to draw massive crowds at its political rallies, mainly to show that it retains the public support of the people of Karachi (and of Hyderabad and other cities in Sindh) despite the “allegations” leveled against them by other political parties and – now – even the country’s security agencies. In a press conference, the city’s police chief acknowledged that he would not know if he would be targeted or killed the day after he raided one of the MQM’s offices in Karachi: in alleged State Department cables released by Wikileaks, it was stated that the MQM has the largest number of “shooters” (assassins, target killers, operatives who undertake murders, etc.) in the city, followed by the Sunni Tehreek (ST), a religio-political party supported by mainstream national religious parties (and, as far as allegations go, even extremism groups and terrorist elements), and then trailed by the PPP, which was linked to a now-proscribed group known as the “People’s Amn Committee” or the “People’s Peace Committee”: this “committee” was at times openly led by well-known criminals and gangsters such as “Rehman Dakait” and “Uzair Baloch”, and even though it was disowned by the PPP (which categorically stated that it had no militant wing), the MQM continued to allege (that both were allies in the federal and Sindh provincial government from 2008 till the end of 2012) that the “Amn Committee” receives tacit support from PPP’s provincial ministers (and “leaked” photographs of these leading ministers – known to be close friends of former President Zardari – with these criminals). On the political front, the MQM has enjoyed the fruits of power for at least one decade (from 2002 onwards) if not two (from the 1990s till date) and has been able to induct officials in various administrative departments of the Karachi city if not across the state institutions of Sindh. This has further entrenched the MQM as an irreplaceable political force in the city of Karachi, as well as on the national political scene – particularly after the 2002 general elections, when the MQM allied itself with President General Pervez Musharraf’s PML-Q in the National Assembly and in Sindh (General Musharraf also belonged to the same Mohajir ethnic background that the MQM purports to support, protect and promote: a variety of factors behind the MQM’s rise in the 21stcentury have been attributed to General Musharraf’s control over the political power centers in Islamabad, to his scheme of local governance systems that were developed and implemented in the provinces during his regime, and to the Army Chief’s control over other institutions in Pakistan when occupying the office of the President as well).
The situation in Karachi has reached such a critical stage that now, there are maps available to the public – through news media sources – that clearly highlight dangerous areas and “no go areas”; areas where even law enforcement agencies cannot operate without serious risk to their lives:
In the above map, the areas highlighted red are “designated” as “complete no go areas”, whereas areas highlighted in orange are designated as “dangerous areas for particular ethnic groups during times of violence”. On September 04, 2013, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ordered the Sindh police and law enforcement agencies to abolish these “no go areas” in Karachi. As the new PML-N government was pressed to stabilize the Karachi situation on a priority basis, a “selective, not targeted” operation was initiated under the lead of the Sindh Rangers on September 05. A few weeks later, on September 27, the Supreme Court passed an interim order “to clear the capital, Karachi[,] of illicit arms, ammunition and ‘no go areas’”. However, deweaponization schemes in the provincial capital have yielded little to no results whenever they were initiated, and even the deployment of the paramilitary Sindh Rangers in Karachi has yet to register significant results in terms of a drop in the crime rate. Various law enforcement agencies – either collectively or individually – undertake “targeted” operations in selected areas of the city in order to apprehend suspects as well as weapons, illicit monies (obtained from illegal activities ranging from kidnapping-for-ransom, extortion, drug money, etc.) and narcotics. While the media is quick to report about such targeted operations in particular areas of the city – as opposed to a city-wide military operation such as “Operation Clean-up”/“Operation Blue Fox” (which is considered an “armed military intelligence program” rather than a military operation, and was pursued by both PM Nawaz Sharif and even more vigorously by his successor in 1993, PM Benazir Bhutto, who then led the PPP and had more stakes in Sindh and Karachi than PM Sharif or the PML-N) that took place from June 19, 1992 to August 16, 1994 – an advance notice of such security operations practically defeats the purpose of LEA activity in sensitive (that is, dangerous or volatile) areas of the city, giving enough time for criminal elements to relocate themselves before the operation(s) actually get underway. Such media coverage actually allows wanted criminals to escape the clutches of law enforcement agencies, and escape to other parts of Pakistan (settled areas as well as militancy-affected areas in FATA) or even abroad. The fact that criminals escape because of such advance notice became apparent on September 18 this year, when 14 “target killers” (as such criminals and assassins are popularly known and officially labeled in Karachi) were arrested from the hill-town resort city of Murree. On October 04, 2 more “target killers” were apprehended from Lahore’s Anarkali area, and were known to be engaged in criminal activities in Karachi, including – but perhaps not limited to – target killing and extortion. What has still not become apparent or obvious, at least to the general population and to media outlets, is that lack of coordination between law enforcement agencies and media outlets (who are competing for ratings with other news channels) allows these criminals to escape – and while operatives and low-level criminals may get arrested, masterminds and leaders of criminal groups remain at large. The map below shows (highlighted in orange) the areas where law enforcement agencies have conducted operations since September 05:
The stability of Karachi has undoubtedly deteriorated since the War on Terror began: the mass exodus of Pashtuns during the earlier Soviet invasion of Afghanistan mostly restricted the influx to FATA, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (then known as the North West Frontier Province or NWFP) and parts of Balochistan, but the 2001 US-led invasion spread Pashtuns to areas further east in Pakistan. A large number of Pashtuns and Afghan migrants now work in Islamabad, the federal capital (which is only an hour’s drive away from Peshawar, the provincial capital of KP province), and have added to the number of Pashtuns living in Karachi as well as the Pashtun-dominated parts of Balochistan – a province that has remained undeveloped and restive since Pakistan achieved nominal independence from British rule in 1947 (Pakistan remained a British dominion with the Queen as its sovereign till 1956, when it promulgated its first Constitution and declared itself a republic). In the same way that it is considered unwise and factually inappropriate to blame Pashtuns for the problems being faced by state administrations or the civic population in Afghanistan, FATA, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, or the Baloch (or separatist Baloch insurgents) for the woes of Balochistan, it is also incorrect to place the entire blame of Karachi’s rampant insecurity problems on the Mohajir population or on the MQM alone – or even on the Pashtuns and their political representatives in Sindh and Karachi. Security officials, on condition of anonymity, have claimed that Karachi is one of the main battlegrounds of the aforementioned “New Great Game”, which involves “players” such as the United States (and the Taliban), Saudi Arabia (and Iran), Russia, China, and even India, Pakistan’s traditional “enemy” with whom peace overtures are on the rise through official channels, back channels as well as Track II diplomatic initiatives. Karachi is seen as a proxy battleground between the US and the Taliban, according to sources who requested anonymity since they are not allowed to report on operational details pertaining to ongoing intelligence activities, where it is suspected that Saudi Arabia – through its own proxies, such as madrassas and Wahhabi/Deobandi political and militant groups – also plays a role (according to Wikileaks’ alleged State Department cables, Saudi Arabian officials claimed that they were “participants, not observers” in whatever goes on in Pakistan). Balochistan is also a proxy battlefield for the US and the Quetta Shura Taliban (QST), the main Afghan Taliban group that is believed to be operating in southern Afghanistan – the birthplace and stronghold of the Taliban – as well as between the US and Iran, since the Balochistan province borders Iran. The contemporary Sunni-Shi’ite schism (with Saudi Arabia leading Sunni states and groups as Iran patronizes Shi’ite countries and political/militia elements throughout the “Muslim world” from North Africa to the Middle East to South Asia) also plays out in Balochistan and Karachi – and perhaps, even in parts of southern Punjab, where poverty and marginalization have given impetus to growing radicalism and extremism among the Sunni majority population, who are indoctrinated to believe that Shi’ites are “kuffar” or infidels, and therefore must be eliminated.
With close cordial ties to the ruling House of Saud in Saudi Arabia, and long-term economic interests (particularly in terms of addressing Pakistan’s crippling energy crisis) with Iran, the incumbent PML-N government must undertake a delicate balancing act in order to ensure that Pakistan’s interests are not compromised, that its relations with Muslim countries (beneficiaries such as Saudi Arabia and neighbors such as Iran and Afghanistan) do not deteriorate, and that the rampant killing of Pakistani citizens – regardless of which religious group, sect or denomination they belong to – ceases forthwith. It would take the brilliance of a policy strategist and the networking of a successful international diplomat for Pakistan to realize that it is in the unique position of bridging the growing gap of mistrust and suspicion between Saudi Arabia and Iran: Pakistan would not be new to playing the role of peacemaker between other countries in the international community, whether they be superpowers or regional powers, since Pakistan was a crucial lynchpin in the Nixon Administration’s “opening up” of China (the People’s Republic) in 1971, when Nixon’s National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, made secret trips to Beijing while media reporting placed him in Murree or in Islamabad, Pakistan. In bridging the divide between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and indeed, between the West and Iran, Pakistan would surely be aided by its age-old yet newfound ally, Turkey, which has been leading the effort to end the international estrangement of Iran. Recent overtures made by the US towards Iran – including a historic telephone call between US President Obama and newly-elected Iranian President Rouhani – would go a long way in securing Pakistan’s credibility as an international peacemaker, apart from enhancing regional stability in South Asia (which directly affects Pakistan, and even more so as US-led NATO forces withdraw in 2014) and the Middle East, should Pakistan choose to assert itself regionally and globally in such a manner.
The security of Karachi, however, has stumped politicians, law enforcement agencies and security/intelligence officials for almost a decade now. As citizens remain thoroughly disenchanted with the centralized (and desensitized) system of governance in Pakistan – despite the devolution of power to the provinces as per the 18th Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan – the institution of local governance systems that are capable of delivering on security issues has been the most desperate need of the hour for almost half a decade now. Such systems of local governance, civil defense, and augmented law enforcement to protect and serve the citizens of Pakistan are relevant not only to Karachi, but also to Swat district in Malakand division, where a full-scale military operation (Operation Toar Tandar-I, or Operation “Black Thunderstorm-I”) was undertaken to dislodge Pakistani Taliban elements from four districts of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in 2009 (after a previous operation in 2007 resulted in a ceasefire, concessions to the extremist Taliban elements and the quasi-political movement headed by Fazlullah’s father in law – the TNSM – and eventual collapse of the “ceasefire agreement” between the state and Fazlullah’s militia). While Malakand division, Swat district, and the city of Mingora were restored to the control of Pakistani authorities after the Second Battle of Swat, the leader of the Swat Taliban, Mullah Fazlullah, continues to undertake attacks in Swat from across the border in Afghanistan, where he has managed to acquire safe haven in Kunar and Nuristan provinces bordering Pakistan. As such, civil defense departments of local government bodies and enhanced police forces – with better training, better equipment, updated intelligence gathering activities and technologies, and most importantly, the training and indoctrination to serve and protect the citizens of Pakistan as opposed to perpetuating the colonial notion of “controlling the natives” for which the British colonial administration created the police force in India in the first place (and which has been inherited without any major changes by Pakistan; except for a widespread amendment in policing laws as per General Musharraf’s Police Ordinance promulgated in 2002 but quickly scrapped by both the bureaucracy, and later, by successive political forces opposed to General Musharraf in particular, as well as dictatorial legislation in general) – would be the starting point of creating a secure Pakistan where settled areas, major cities and provincial capitals would be monitored and stabilized by modern and efficient police forces. Hassan Abbas authored an extremely pertinent and useful report (sanctioned and commissioned by the Asia Society: particularly, the Asia Society Independent Commission on Pakistan Police Reform) in July 2012 which provides a comprehensive framework for police reform and law enforcement overhaul; it has also given due attention to the problem of militancy in Pakistan as well as the various facets and dimensions of urban crime in the country.
The internalization of intelligence capacity by the police or by civilian agencies is also an important policy consideration that is reported to be under discussion at the highest levels of government in Pakistan: in addition to local police having their own intelligence units and undercover operatives in their area of jurisdiction, it has been recommended by senior security officials (both serving and retired) that internal security and intra-Pakistan intelligence gathering (as well as intelligence operations) be mandated to either the civilian Intelligence Bureau (IB) – which has yet to register any kind of major performance in terms of Pakistan fighting the War on Terror at the home front, in its streets and cities – or to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) – which is Pakistan’s equivalent of the US FBI, but not nearly as effective or apolitical as the security situation of Pakistan demands it to be. As such, a policy option in terms of the IB supplementing local law enforcement capacity at the division, district and sub-district level, with the FIA operating as the lead investigative agency across provinces and at the federal level. In addition to a National Security Policy that provides clear guidelines for intelligence gathering activities and operational mandates, a mechanism for sharing intelligence across all agencies (law enforcement, civil intelligence, and various military intelligence agencies such as the premier ISI directorate, the MI whose primarily task is military counter-intelligence) and proactively following up on actionable leads against terrorist targets inside Pakistan must also be created, especially so that inter-service or inter-agency rivalries can be avoided and critical intelligence information can be perused for timely operations against dangerous anti-state and anti-social elements before they have the opportunity to escape the long arm of the law.
While policies can go only as far as paper, policy implementation is the most important consideration for the government and the bureaucracy. The proper incentives must be offered to both law enforcement operatives and intelligence operatives in the field within Pakistan so that reactive policing measures can become proactive and preventative policing activities. To this effect, amendments and updates in the anti-terror laws of Pakistan (as opposed to anti-terror policies) are also desperately needed: near the end of its parliamentary tenure, in March 2013, the previous National Assembly and Senate finally enacted new anti-terror legislation, while Pakistan had bled for almost a decade (including five years of civilian government elected by the people to make the right choices for them, albeit for one Senate standing committee chair without whom the law would have been passed two years earlier). Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has recently stated that a new, much more potent anti-terror law was in the final stages of legislation and enactment, and those charged under this law would not be allowed release on bail. For the stabilization of Karachi, the Sindh government promulgated a witness protection law on September 18 that will go a long way in protecting those who identify criminal elements and testify against them in court: it is no secret that journalists, lawyers, prosecutors, and even judges have been targeted for assassination in the past – a former Governor of Sindh, Sir Dr. Hakim Muhammad Said, was also assassinated in October 1998, apparently because of his gubernatorial role during the 1992-94 Operation in Karachi, since his term of office was from July 1993 to January 1994.
In the long run, it is for the citizens of Karachi to decide who their leaders are, and how their city can be secured, so that peace and prosperity is guaranteed not only for the port city whose operations are vital for Pakistan’s economy, but for the rest of Pakistan as well. Representative local government mechanisms (elected on party or non-party basis) with better policing mechanisms, improved intelligence gathering (rather than denial of modern Internet-based peer-to-peer technology services, like banning Skype, Viber, Whatsapp, or other communication technologies) and sharing protocols along with timely action against terrorist elements targeting the state and citizens of Pakistan, and the political will to secure Pakistan will muster invaluable civilian support – the citizens of Pakistan must decide whether they choose to die for no reason on the streets of Pakistan without anyone to identify or catch their killers or provide real solace and support to their family members, in a manner that psychologically terrorizes the nation, debilitates official action and demoralizes the citizens as well as their protectors; or whether they choose to support a proactive government at the federal, provincial and local level that sets up an effective civilian policing system (where the paramilitary or military units are called in only at times of national crisis, and not placed on police duty throughout the time that the provincial and city police units actually are on duty) with adequate mechanisms to respond to both crime and terror, and most importantly, is more determined to preserve, protect and defend Pakistan than those who wish to destroy the peace, stability and security of the country and its citizens piece by piece, one at a time.
It has been proven that when faced with post-modern, 21st century threats, and operating a post-colonial, under-developed governance mechanism, the government, or the state, or any of its agencies cannot secure Pakistan without the active support – and, if possible, additional liaison to the effect of corrective improvement in existing and proposed security apparatus, coming directly from the recipients of this state service, which is a duty as well as a responsibility of the state and of whoever is elected or appointed to occupy the offices of the government and the state – from the citizens of Pakistan: those who pay their taxes and cast their votes, those who work hard to improve the country’s economy and to improve their own livelihood, those who choose to stick by their country no matter how bad the security situation is, no matter how bad the country’s international image becomes, no matter how worried relatives living abroad are. It has also been proven that the citizens themselves – whether they are rich people living in mansions and large bungalows behind extra-tall, secured, reinforced concrete walls, and move around with a small army that protects them at home and in the city, or poor people who band together to form “committees” for peace or armed militias or “lashkars” to defend themselves against threats to the state and society, or just individuals who have licensed or unlicensed weaponry at home to protect their family (and who may sometimes carry such weapons if they feel at risk while outside their home or outside a protected environment) – cannot perform the task of improving the security situation in the city or the country, even if they can yield positive results at the community-wide or street-wide level. A concerted approach – with truth and openness on what threat is faced at what level and by what (kind of) target, how it is being countered, how it can be countered (with existing resources), and most essentially, how it should be countered – with the state and society on the same page is the only way that Pakistan can seriously see positive and robust results on an improved security situation at the local and national level. Modernizing the country’s overall governance methodology, and developing effective police forces and policing mechanisms for all tiers of governance, will be complemented by civic support and citizen input on issues of immediate consideration and crucial areas that require urgent improvement.
As the world moves on – and it will move on, whether it is from Afghanistan in 2014, or from other issues affecting the underdeveloped countries of the Third World, like the Millennium Development Goals and their evaluation in 2015 – it is incumbent on the current government as well as all dutiful and responsible citizens of the state to make sure that Pakistan is not left behind: that Pakistan develops as the world develops (and perhaps tries to make an effort to stay a step ahead, and lead instead of follow – especially in terms of counter-extremism and counter-insurgency tactics, since Pakistan is among the few countries which has actually been facing these threats and tackling them without seriously compromising the integrity and sovereignty of the country) and that the right choices are made by the right people at the right time, who are rightfully appointed or elected to the right office because of merit and performance rather than nepotism and bribery. The decision of Pakistan’s government and major political parties in the much-acclaimed “All Parties Conference”, and the response – or blowback, rather – of the terrorists (Pakistani Taliban, TTP, Al Qaeda, their affiliates, supporters, operatives, and other groups) on this perceived weakness of the state to have no choice but to negotiate, is loud and clear: if it is not, the September 22 twin suicide-bomber attack on Peshawar’s All Saint’s Church tells the entire tale of the multifaceted threat faced by the country and all of its citizens (particularly the minorities and the unprotected), how Pakistan has enemies and not one enemy, and finally, how it is unity, faith and discipline – on part of the state as well as the society – that will rescue Pakistan, deliver us from this mess (which we, or our rulers, may or may not have created), and prepare us for what lies ahead in 2014 and beyond; when there will be a real mess in South Asia that will have to be dealt with.
An enfeebled society, fractured by ethnic, sectarian, social and political divisions and at the mercy of criminals and terrorists with zero human security from the state can be exploited by criminal mafias and terrorist networks: Pakistan has unfortunately become the textbook example of this phenomenon. External forces seeking to destabilize Pakistan can operate with impunity, merging their orchestrated activities with those of criminals and militants, and even using them to act on their behalf. For far too long, Karachi has been a city of death, and this protracted period of violence has led to the establishment of networks that – if not destroyed – will be totally out of control, and beyond the capacity of law enforcement agencies. Governance — effective governance is most urgently needed to arrest this phenomenon.
By Shemrez Nauman Afzal
SPEARHEAD RESEARCH
SPEARHEAD RESEARCH
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