not bring about any major reforms in the police. Even Rangers despite their presence in the city for the last 21 years could not restore normalcy in the city.
Karachi has a few basic problems, which provide easy access to the terror groups. These include, among others, huge population of nearly 25 million; thousands of katchi abadis where some terrorist groups have their base; untrained, highly corrupt and politicised police force; successive incompetent governments and militant wings of different political parties and groups.
When Nawaz Sharif came to power and decided to launch Karachi operation against terrorists, he took all the stakeholders into confidence. The army chief was also present in the meeting, which gave approval to the Karachi Targeted Action. All this came as a result of the Supreme Court order in “Karachi law and order” case in 2011.
It was decided in the meeting that the Chief Minister of Sindh, Syed Qaim Ali Shah, would be the captain and Governor of Sindh, Dr Ishratul Ibad, vice-Captain while the DG, Rangers, Major General Bilal (previously it was General Rizwan Akhtat) as operational commander.
It was also decided that the operation would be across the board and that there will be no political interference in the working of the Rangers and police would be trained to counter terrorist attacks.
Later, Corps Commander, Karachi was asked to look into the operational side and in the last one year, cases of extortion and target killings declined before the operation took somewhat different turn and MQM, which supported the operation, started showing concern on the plea that its workers have been targeted.
In the last four months, many persons allegedly linked with MQM have been arrested including some high profile alleged killers. In one such JIT, MQM was accused of masterminding “Baldia factor fire” in which 250 people were burnt alive. This was followed by Saulat Mirza’s video.
Right or wrong but it suddenly changed the perception about the operation and most of the people arrested for alleged involvement in terrorist attacks belonged to MQM, but the party denied involvement in such activities.
During all this period a new trend of terrorism emerged with the killing of a human rights activist Sabeen Mahmood and a university professor. It was followed by the killings of some ranking officers. In between some members of the Bhori community were also targeted, which surprised many intelligence officials.
It was at this point that the army chief’s unusual statement came in which he said about the “pattern” in the recent killings.
Following his statement the army’s top brass came out with a strong statement about the alleged involvement of India’s RAW.
With the latest attack, one of the worst since the launch of Karachi Targeted Action, the Ismaili community members came under attack in a well-planned ambush on their bus, killing 47 and injuring 16. Thus, the target killings of teachers, lawyers, doctors and rights activists continued, causing grave concern in the country.
Karachi needs a new captain, if not a fresh team. It is better if the Pakistan Peoples Party and its leadership take a decision about its Sindh government before someone else does so. Is it not strange that for the last one year, Ch. Nisar Ali Khan has rarely spoken to the captain of the operation - Syed Qaim Ali Shah.
There are also differences between the province and the center over the modalities of the operation. So, let us see what new measures civil and military leadership takes or do we need another tragedy to wake us up?
The writer is the senior columnist and analyst of GEO, The News and Jang.