Who dunnit this time?

The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor.

The violence which has laid out a cobweb woven from blood out across our country no longer makes sense. The bloodshed that has stalked us for decades was once easier to understand – even if it was just as horrific as what we witness today.

When the sectarian killers who struck in Punjab in the 1990s gunned down prominent figures or used bombs to blow apart buildings and people, we knew what the twisted motive was. We understood the driving force too behind the violence inflicted over the next decades by the Taliban on forces that represented the state or the politically inspired killing sprees of Karachi.

The chaos of those decades of death has left behind so many complications that we no longer know who is killing who or why. This is a frightening situation to be in. We are caught in the middle of a war in which we do not know who is controlling the various forces, and there are a number of them in action. Of these groups any one of them may have killed Amjad Sabri in Karachi last week.

The same force, or perhaps an entirely different one, may have kidnapped the son of the chief justice of the Sindh High Court a few days before. We really have no clues as to who was behind these criminal acts or the targeted killings that are once more taking place in Karachi. Law-enforcement personnel claim to have found clues. This is not reassuring given that in the past their words have meant nothing at all. We also do not know if there are other elements at work in Karachi who we cannot see but who act for purposes that form a part of a bigger plot. It is simply impossible to say. Guessing is no longer enough.

The guessing over the past years has at any point brought us nowhere at all. Because so many centres of violence exist within the country, it is possible, even probable, that one will be stirred up at any given time and a ruthless murder carried out by the men it sends out onto the streets. The fact that these points of violence continue to grow in number is not comforting. There is also a mindset of greater and greater acceptance that comes along with the killings.

We no longer react to them or show anything beyond the initial demonstrations of pain that come unintentionally and spontaneously. The effort to fight back against the forces which rob us of humanity, and of some of the people who could best serve our cause as a nation, is however not visible. This perhaps is the reason why we slide into greater and greater depths of mayhem.

Apart from the two high-profile cases of violence in Karachi, there have also been threats against other persons, in the entertainment business and in other walks of life, who would appear to pose no danger to anyone at all. In some instances, it is thought the role these persons played in a particular stage play or movie may have triggered the phone calls made suggesting their lives could be brought to a swift end.

This is obviously insanity. But then, there has been so much insanity in the country it is possible that even this reading of small incidents may be correct. The critical problem is that despite the candlelit vigils held at city squares, despite the outcries against the killings, despite other small protests, there has been no overall action against the insecurity that now puts every life in the country at risk.

It would need a political party to launch this kind of drive to raise anger about what is happening and suggest means to bring it to an end. One problem is that at least some of the political parties may themselves be mired in the mess from which the violence springs. Certainly, in Karachi, they have played a part in fanning in on. People however look desperately for some signs that a group may be willing to lead them out of the darkness they face today.

The sad reality is that all the political groups presently on Pakistan’s increasingly narrow political spectrum seem to be incapable of rising to the challenge that confronts them. The PML-N and the PPP have of course tried and failed in the decades before this as well. The PTI, which had emerged as the ‘new player’ on the political scene some two decades ago, has lost much of the sheen it once brought with it.

Imran Khan, as a political leader, has not risen to the occasion and in fact locked himself into one controversy after the other which raised questions both about his ethics and his basic belief. The support extended by the KP government to a madressah administered by Maulana Samiul Haq raises a number of questions about quite what that setup has in mind. Surely if we have any intention of defeating extremism, there can be no justification for promoting ideology of the kind perpetuated by Samiul Haq or others from the same school of thought.

These actions simply go to build tolerance for fanaticism and then violence in our society. We hardly react when a few people are killed in Karachi, Peshawar, the tribal areas or elsewhere. It takes death which comes by the dozens or scores to move us at all. Yes, we were all shaken by the killings at the Army Public school in December 2014 or at the Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park in Lahore in March this year.

But then we forgot and move on to other pursuits. While this is perfectly understandable in the case of those who need to get on with their lives, it is not acceptable for governments or those who devise policies. They need to remain focused on tackling the immense dangers we face and finding a way to make us safer. They cannot just move on and hope the horrors of the past will not be repeated. This strategy has not worked before, and there is no reason to believe it will work in the future.

In Karachi, we have once more seen an upsurge in the violence that the city has faced at periodic intervals. There are so many tides running through that metropolis that it is difficult to understand how they can all be tamed. But this is where our political leadership needs to play a part. If they do not, other elements will quite naturally feel obliged to step in. perhaps a solution cannot be conjured up immediately.

But at least some sense of direction can be provided to people by putting out suggestions on how this goal can finally be attained rather than making vague promises that tell us the culprits behind the latest crimes will be apprehended, even when we all know that this is for many reasons unlikely to happen.

We have not heard a comprehensive, sensible plan of action from any political party so far. This adds to the sense of wandering in the darkness that we currently experience and the idea that the tunnel we are enclosed in may not have an opening at the other side at all.

Email: kamilahyat@hotmail.com