The assassination of famous qawwal Amjad Sabri and the kidnapping of the son of Chief Justice of Sindh High Court last month set in motion the same old formula for improving the security of the city. This was the concerned arrival in Karachi of Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan and Army Chief General Raheel Sharif to hold meetings and discussions with the Sindh government to find ways and means to make the city a safe place. As usual, the solution was to beef up the security forces. This is an old game, an eyewash. Sometimes the Rangers are beefed up. This time 20,000 more police will be recruited. The point to note is that the army will have a key role in the recruitments. It is euphemistically explained by ISPR that the army will 'assist' to ensure merit-based recruitment.
Neither the PPP, nor the MQM, has protested at the planned increase in the Police force. None of the smaller parties of Sindh has protested at the loss of their space. Karachi these days presents a picture of a garrison town.
It appears the political parties have abdicated their responsibility to their voters. It appears as if they simply do not exist. Chief Minister Sindh Qaim Ali Shah, was part of the meeting that decided to beef-up the police force, but if you saw the footage or looked at the pictures of the meeting you could not miss the fact that the men in uniform dominated the meeting.
It would not be incorrect to say that Karachi is no longer a democracy; at best it can be called a 'militarised democracy' insofar as the role of Sindh Chief Minister in the province's law and order is concerned. But the question is: Does the CM have a say in such meetings? The result of the last meeting shows he does not.
A city with the scale and size of Karachi can never be totally secure. The number of security personnel may be increased with every high-profile kidnapping or killing of a famous person. Those who have been gunned down in recent years are men and women who were the voice of the public, even Amjad Sabri represented the happy and tolerant character of entertainers, and musicians who the public loved. Why only these people who have no enemies are targeted and killed? It is traditional to lay the blame at the doorstep of fanatic and bigots, but the truth is nobody really knows the real face of the kidnappers and murderers.
The reason for such ignorance is the ineffective method of surveillance. People with guns only are evident as security measures. Telemetric surveillance employing CCTV, radars and drones; biometric and forensic data gathering are mere window dressing. Have you ever been told from what type of gun a bullet was fired? Are DNA samples taken from a dead victim or from the crime scene? Is there ever an autopsy report?
You can bring into Karachi not just 20,000 more police; you can bring in 20 million, or even the whole Pakistan Army. As long as the data-gathering method of crime detection is not efficient there will never be total security in Karachi.
This city lacks effective policing methods because the stress is on manpower - the Police and Rangers. The latest technology for crime fighting, even if something does exist (such as CCTV), is not given any importance.
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