That the gang war has spilled out of Lyari into other neighbourhoods is a reality that has found its best expression in the tragedy of Monday March 10 when five young Baloch men, three of them professional boxers, were killed in Mowachh Goth, on suspicion of being informers of two gang leaders of the banned People's Amn Committee. This is the reading of the tragedy by the area police.
The recent escalation of killing in the Lyari gang war seems as if there is a competition going on between gangsters, as if they are asking: 'Who can shed the most blood?' It's a game of one upmanship. It is not really a war, which is an expression of hostility between two or more groups. This is a page from the Taliban's book. Most of the terrorist attacks are simply an advertisement of their power. Unscrupulous persons hire them to do their dirty work.
That is exactly what the gangsters of Lyari are doing; they are telling the city's exploiters they may be hired to kill, burn, cause mayhem on a mass scale. Wednesday's 19 plus killings are a case in pointed. The city has about eight places where innocent folk, who were nobody's enemy, have been killed. The reason they were killed is not because they were the killer's enemy. Till recently only organisations like the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have advertised their nuisance value. Now it is the Lyari gangsters who want a piece of the criminal pie. That is the real reason why the gangwargang war has spilled out of Lyari. Police and crime analysts may agree, If the stop thinking in clichés.
A review of the eight deadly areas in Karachi reveals that the killings there were to facilitate the land mafia, the drug mafia, political domination, extortion or bhuttabhatta, kidnapping and bank or jewellery shop thefts. The killers get paid for their crimes by those who hire them are the ones who profit.
In Lyari and Kharadar people have been killed for political control, and consolidation of the drug mafia. Gangsters have always been there in Lyari but their 'importance' increased when they were hired by political parties to eliminate political opponents. For poverty-stricken Lyariites criminal activity became a lucrative job. A number of them who had never thought of crime now joined gangs.
Over the past four or five years there has been such a lot of 'demand' for the services of gangsters that several gangster groups came into existence. Then gang wars erupted as various gangs tried to gain total control of the criminal business.
Why is it that gangs cannot be obliterated? The reason is the same why the TTP's terrorism cannot be stopped. Without their notoriety they are nobody. Peace does not suit them. Imagine someone who has been earning thousands from killing setting up a, say panshop or some such small business to live a life of peace and earn an honest livelihood. Not them. They have literally tasted blood and feel proud that the world is afraid of them.
The police and government focus on the gangsters. The clean-up operations by Rangers and Police in Lyari, Kharadar, Ranchor Lines, Old City area, Agrataj Colony, Hingorabad, Nayaabad, Bihar Colony (Lyari) Eidgah, Saddar and Jamshed Quarters have not brought peace to these most troubled areas. Golimar, Saeedabad, Banaras, Surjani, Sohrab Goth, Quaidabad and Korangi are areas of interest for the land mafia and the political parties mostly. Sohrab Goth and Quaidabad are identified as TTP strongholds whose agenda is sectarian cleansing.
The police and government do not, or rather dare not,not; hold the land mafia, drug mafia or the religious fanatics responsible for the murder and mayhem in the city. It is so convenient to concentrate on the Lyari gangsters. As for the political parties which are using the gangsters to do their dirty work, they may blame each other but it does not discourage them from using gangsters' service.
So the real cause of escalation in crimes and increase in the killing fields remain intact. Therefore, there will be no real peace in the city.
It is an open secret that the escalation in Lyari violence in recent years is due to political jockeying between the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) to establish control in this poorest of poor areas of the city. Though token good work has been done by both parties to improve the life of Lyariites, they need to work harder towards efforts aimed at restoring peace in Lyari.
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