When will peace come to Karachi?

ISLAMABAD: Why everyone in this city of 20 million fears more violence? If the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) called off its “mourning” against the killing of its four workers, the residents will send their children to schools in a state of panic and fear.
Can peace ever return to the city, once used to be called the city of lights? If schools remain closed on Monday, the same fear will be there on Tuesday or perhaps everyday, as we still look for a solution.
Why do the MQM and Awami National Party (ANP), who once had serious political differences now have joined hands in demanding “army operation” which now looks inevitable and it could be the first big test of the National Action Plan (NAP). Perhaps, the only hurdle is the disagreement between the federal government and the Sindh government, or perhaps a decision in this regard lies with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, former President Asif Ali Zardari and Army chief General Raheel Sharif.
Premier intelligence agencies have already alerted the authorities about the strong presence of national and international terror networks in Karachi, particularly after success in the operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan.
Has al-Qaeda returned to Karachi for fresh recruitments and stationed on the outskirts of the city? The global terror network had stationed in the city after 2002, but during those years, most of its members were Arabs or Ubzeks. They hardly recruit Pakistanis in their network. After the arrest of some of its key leaders and raids on their sleeper cells, the international terror network shifted its operations from the city.
Its return to city was first noticed after a plan to break Central Prison, Karachi, was unearthed. The arrest of some of the suspects resulted in major crackdown on its hideouts in which some of them were killed while others were arrested or managed to escape.
However, the major fear of the MQM and ANP is not al-Qaeda but Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). They believe that the TTP has strong roots in the outskirts of Karachi.
ANP’s offices, in particular, have been closed since 2013 and many of its workers are shifting from the city. Since the ANP, a Pakhtun-dominated party, operates in those localities, its members become the soft target.
The MQM, on the other hand, for the first time has feared that their workers are facing multiple problems. On the one hand they are under attack from the Taliban, while on the other their activists are also being killed in custody or they face mysterious disappearances.
The recent discoveries of bodies, not only of MQM workers, but also of Sindhi nationalists, and even of Balochs have complicated the trend of violence in the port city.Even the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has disclosed killing of hundreds of its workers and local leaders in target killings in the last few years. Though the PPP is and has been in power, its government too looks clueless.
Police also have a long list of officers and jawans killed by militants in the last few years. The official death toll is over 300.Activists of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) beside other religious and ethnic parties and group were also among those killed.
All this has made Karachi practically ungovernable and uncontrollable, which has given space to militant groups to consolidate their positions. The operation by the police and paramilitary Rangers has a few success stories but the difficulties they have faced in the thickly populated areas are large in number.Target killings in the city are largely ethnic, sectarian and political in nature. The MQM fears that they have become the main target because of its consistent stance against the Taliban.
What is most alarming about the city is the disclosure of a senior police officer that the city has become the breeding ground for recruitment of militants, not mere by local groups but by international terror networks like al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
“A large number of Bengalis and Burmese, beside Sindhi and even Urdu-speaking youth have been recruited by these groups,” a police officer said, on condition of anonymity.
Though the city was shut down after MQM declared “mourning,” after the killing of four of its workers, one has doubts that the Sindh government has an answer or solution to the problem. The city has practically become ungovernable and unmanageable.
“We are sitting on a volcano, which sooner or later will explode, either in the shape of civil war or massacres day in and day out,” he warned.Previously the militants were normally Pashtoons, Afghans or from Seraiki belt.
There could be two reasons why the militants are now focusing on Karachi. The city has the largest number of money-minting machines for the militants with an average collection of two to three billions rupees through kidnap for ransom and bank heists.
The recruitment of the new ethnicities could be due to vulnerability of Pashtoons and Afghans. In a recent bomb blast in Punjab, one of the suspects was a Sindhi speaking while a Bengali militant was killed in an encounter with suspected al-Qaeda group in Karachi.
Karachi has a very large presence of Bengalis and Burmese, mostly living on the outskirts of the city. But never in the past had they been found involved in terrorist activities and were only arrested in cases of theft or burglaries.
“Al-Qaeda, which in the past avoided recruiting people other than Arabs, Uzbeks and Chechens’ have now found Karachi, as one of the most fertile grounds for recruiting terrorists,” the officer said.
The Sindh government is alert about these reports and Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah himself admitted recently that he has reports about a sudden rise in number of madaris, being build up in interior Sindh on illegal land, and sought a comprehensive report. “Yes, I have such reports and have ordered an inquiry,” he said.
More than 15,000 people have been killed in Karachi since 1986, which include over 100 top political and religious leaders and over 2,000 workers related to different political parties, or ethnic and sectarian groups.
One will have to wait and see what action the authorities will take to stop these silent and mysterious killings which have already created panic in the city. Are we all waiting for something like Peshawar to happen in Karachi, before Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif takes the decision of an operation in the mega city too?