VIEW: Karachi’s targeted killings —Ali K Chishti

Gang wars in Lyari are a major concern as these have only recently taken a new turn where Nabeel Gabol, the MNA from the area, is finding it difficult to maintain Lyari as his stronghold post-Rehman Dakait

Targeted killings are an instrument where perpetrators choose to target unarmed enemy individuals in the hope of coercing surrender without having to defeat the enemy’s forces directly. During times of war, civilians often become victims of famine, disease and exposure or perish in the crossfire of opposing forces. These deaths, though tragic, do not qualify as targeted killings as defined above, because they are not intended by either party. Terrorists may also target civilians violently intentionally, bringing the conflict directly into the civilian population with the primary purpose of spreading terror, breaking the enemy’s morale, destroying the enemy’s economic productivity and sparking rebellion inside its territory.

Since the mid-1990s, targeted killings and other forms of violence in Karachi have reached their peak for the second time. The terrorists have been able to target kill more than 294 people in Karachi this year alone. However, these killings are not random; the targets are well chosen. They are the leaders of society, political workers and social activists, whose agendas differ from their opponents. It is not difficult to imagine the kind of trauma that such sustained targeted killings are causing to society. They have shaken the very foundations of Karachi. In 2009 alone, 256 people including workers of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi (MQM-H), Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Awami National Party (ANP) were assassinated, of whom 69 belonged to the MQM; 60 to MQM-H, 28 to PPP, 23 to ANP and 41 belonged to religious groups.

Targeted killing in Karachi has the following dimensions: i) political rivalries and turf wars; ii) ethnic and sectarian factors; iii) intra-party wars; iv) external factors; iv) gang wars. The age-old argument that the land mafia is solely responsible for the targeted killings sounds a bit out of the loop as most of the victims targeted belonged to: New Karachi (31), Shah Faisal (27), Malir (26), North Nazimabad (18), Liaquatabad (14), Gulshan-e-Iqbal (14) — areas that are considered ‘encroachment-free zones’ and are in the heart of Karachi. While land grabbing is an issue in Karachi and activists like Nisar Baloch were targeted, but somehow portraying it as the predominant issue is nothing more than a smokescreen to cover the real issue, i.e. rivalry between various political parties and gangs in Karachi.

The question here is: why every time a meeting commences between various stakeholders or Rehman Malik pops down to Karachi, the killings stop? Let us first accept that there is a problem between various political parties in Karachi, which is understandable since Karachi remains the only urban area in Pakistan to have faced a full-fledged army operation in the 1990s in which more than 25,000 had been killed, of which 15,000 belonged to the MQM alone.

Another dimension is the intra-party war within the MQM, as the Haqiqi faction was carved out of the MQM by intelligence agencies to counter the MQM’s growing power in Karachi. Apparently, 60 political activists of the MQM-H had been killed in Karachi only last year and although certain MQM members might have a beef with them due to the Operation Cleanup days but most of the killing of MQM-H members are a direct result of an intra-party war between two factions, Haqiqi-Afaq and Haqiqi-Aamir — run by Afaq Ahmed and Aamir Khan respectively. Both had been running their respective factions from Central Jail, Karachi. Their rivalry is so bitter that one of the factions recently hit one of the other faction’s members in Lahore. Apparently due to the intra-party war and constant targeting, MQM-H members had joined the Sunni Tehrik, which explains the increasing clashes and rivalry between the MQM and Sunni Tehrik recently.

And then there is this unfortunate ethnic divide because of which targeted killings of MQM and ANP political activists occur in places like Orangi Town, Qasba Aligarh and Banaras, which houses a large Bihari population who got repatriated from former East Pakistan. Apparently, the conflict inside these areas only started when the Afghan refugees starting pouring into Karachi and this has a history dating back to Bihari-Pashtun riots and Qasba Aligarh. The bitter rivalries go on in these areas to this day and beyond anyone’s control. It is more of a tit-for-tat situation in these areas.

The perception that the MQM is behind targeted killings needs serious review as the highest number (69) of people targeted are from the MQM, but being the largest stakeholder in Karachi, the MQM needs to seriously introspect and put a cap on its workers too and show more responsibility. After all, the MQM’s interests are hurt when Karachi gets disrupted.

Gang wars in Lyari are a major concern as these have only recently taken a new turn where Nabeel Gabol, the MNA from the area, is finding it difficult to maintain Lyari as his stronghold post-Rehman Dakait. Lyari is a cash cow because of its drug dens and extortion rackets. The conflict in Lyari is now between Nabeel Gabol versus another member of the PPP, which has resulted in more than 11 deaths only a week ago.

Then there is the sectarian dimension. The monster of sectarian killings has once again raised its head as more internally displaced persons (IDPs) and runaway Taliban, who have a strong nexus with madrassas, arrived in Karachi. There are plans to restructure Sipah-e-Sahaba, while the increasingly militant Imamia Students Organisations (ISO), a force comprising Shia youth, is not helping things.

It looks like the citizens of Karachi will have to get used to targeted killings for a good number of years. In the words of Amir Zia, “Powerful mafias of criminals, interest groups and bands of terrorists all have the potential and power to ignite city-wide violence at will. And in these testing times, the law enforcement agencies continue to be found wanting.”

The writer is a political analyst and can be reached at akchishti@hotmail.com