Empty illusions

Karachi, as we have been made painfully aware in the past few days with the killing of Amjad Sabri and the kidnapping of the Sindh High Court chief justice’s son, is one of the most dangerous cities in the world. Law-enforcement agencies cannot by themselves tackle all the crime, murder and militancy plaguing the metropolis. They need all crime-fighting technology at their disposal, from DNA testing to surveillance cameras. After the chief justice’s son was picked up by armed assailants in Clifton, the police said they had footage available from more than 30 CCTV cameras in the area. The police also released stills of the alleged killers of Sabri, purportedly from CCTV cameras in the vicinity of the shooting. Now one wonders how many of those cameras were actually functioning. IGP AD Khawaja told reporters on Friday that only 20 percent of the CCTVs cameras installed in the city are actually functioning and no funds have been allocated for their maintenance since 2010. Given how often we cite our extraordinary security needs as a reason for the relatively low spending on development, health and education, this is a damning indictment of the state.

We already know that our intelligence capabilities are so poor we are rarely able to prevent attacks by militants. Relying on CCTV footage from the scene of attacks may be the only way of tracking down perpetrators. As for Karachi, the pressure exerted on political actors is so strong that making public a smoking gun in the form of CCTV footage could be one way of resisting interference. The IGP also said there are 2,400 CCTV cameras installed in Karachi, a shockingly low number. As a point of comparison, London, a city of a similar population and much lower crime rate, has 422,000 CCTV cameras. That only a fraction of our cameras are even working shows just how few tools are at the disposal of law-enforcement agencies. The provincial government, which is still in charge of the police until it hands over power to elected local government officials, should make the repair and maintenance of these CCTV cameras its first priority and purchasing new ones its second. In Karachi, the government seems to be providing only the illusion of. It needs to now take the security of its citizens seriously.