In Lyari, ‘penitent’ criminals rally for political refuge

KARACHI: As the crackdown on the Muttahida Qaumi Movement intensifies and law enforcers continue razing the party’s offices as part of efforts to shatter its monolithic image, the rival group formed to challenge the MQM – the Mustafa Kamal-led Pak Sarzameen Party – has been welcoming members of two notorious criminal gangs into the party fold, apparently after they vowed in earnest to steer clear of their illicit activities.

On Sunday evening, a number of people, including small-time criminals associated with different gangs, organised ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ rallies in several areas of Lyari. The rally participants gathered at Old Golimar Chowk before heading to the PSP head office in PECHS where they officially announced their decision to join the party.

Their decision was welcomed by Kamal, “Our doors are open to everyone, irrespective of their political affiliations or ethnicities. My Baloch brothers, if you want to join the PSP, there is just one message you should know is owned by the PSP; promotion of peace and an end to ‘hate-based’ politics.”

Credible sources told The News that key commanders of two criminal gangs – the Baba Ladla group and the Arshad Pappu group – met to discuss the unforeseen political and security developments in the city, with particular focus on the local MQM leaders’ disassociation with party supremo Altaf Hussain and the intensification in the crackdown on its leaders and offices.

“In the meeting, leaders of both gangs – hailing from the city’s various Baloch-populated nieghbourhoods, including Lyari, Malir, Mawach Goth, Old Golimar and Manghopir – decided to openly announce that they will be abandoning their illegal activities and start shutting down criminal dens in their respective areas,” said a source privy to the meeting, who also claimed that Sunday’s new PSP entrants even included some area-level commanders.  

 

Seeking sanctuary?

After a Rangers-led targeted operation was launched in Karachi against target killers, extortionists and kidnappers in September 2013, many members of the criminal syndicates operating in Lyari, Malir and other parts of the city were either killed or arrested.

More recently, on August 28, police arrested a wanted gangster Rafiq Baloch alias Rafu, in a raid on a hideout near Lyari’s Dubai Chowk. Police said that the suspect was involved in a number of heinous crimes, including murder, attempted murders and extortions.

A chairman of one of Lyari’s union committees, however, said that hardcore militants who had gone underground were still involved in terrorist activities. “A number of these gangsters, most of them small-time criminals, were seen in the ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ rallies organised in different neighbourhoods of Lyari on Sunday,” he said. 

“By partaking in such activities and announcing their inclusion into the PSP, they hope to convince the law enforcement agencies that they really have left behind their criminal past.”

However, a law enforcement official operating in Lyari asserted that the law would continue to strike down on anyone who was involved in criminal activities, and that no one would be allowed to destroy the semblance of peace now witnessed in Lyari.

“There is no truth to the notion that criminals joining a certain political party will be spared. It is completely misguided assumption; how can that be the case when even the PSP’s founding member, Anis Qaimkhani, is behind bars?”