Murder of Raza Haider and it's pre-planned fallout.

Murder of Raza Haider and it's pre-planned fallout.

Karachi, one of the world’s largest Muslim cities, is Pakistan’s main business capital. Yesterday, the downtown was deserted, most shops were shuttered and schools closed. Police and Army Rangers were deployed throughout Karachi to restore order in the city of 18 million after the gunning down of Raza Haider, a member of Karachi’s ruling Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), was killed on Monday with his police bodyguard. Assassins on motorcycles sprayed him with bullets as he visited a mosque for the funeral of a friend’s mother. His death and the violence it spawned are the latest in a wave of political killings, drive-by assassinations and religious and ethnic violence that has seen nearly 1,200 die in Karachi in the last two years. Residents are bracing for a continuation of violence that saw mobs torch shops, markets, buses and restaurants in neighborhoods across the city. Most of the 85 people who were killed till tonight were victims of targeted revenge attacks, while another 200 people were injured, police said.

Monday’s riots pitted MQM members against the rival Awami National Party, a secular nationalist party whose main power centre is in the flood-stricken northwest and whose base is ethnic Pashtun. Karachi has the country’s largest concentration of Pashtuns outside the northwest. It is also believed to be a hiding place for Taliban insurgents who were recently forced out of the area by Pakistani army operations.

The target killings of Pashtuns in Mohajir dominated areas of Karachi and Mohajirs by Pashtuns in their areas are being pumped up since last couple of months. Specially from the area of Gulestan-e-Johar which has become the Red Light area of Karachi. In Johar, a person can get a room in flat for a night or for some hours by paying few thousand rupees and can have all illegal activities to enjoy. Unreported rapes of woman from noble families are common there but no body spokes about them because the vitums are white color noble families and don’t have money to move out. Drug Mafia, Land Mafia, Arms, Call Girls, Wine, etc can easily be found and have strong holds there. Gulestan-e-Johar is the city of flats/apartments and if you can expand it on ground base plots it can create another Karachi with in Karachi. All ethinic groups from all over Pakistan and abroad have flats / apartments in Johar. Rabia City the well-known project of Johar which have more than 1000 flats are popular for it’s red light activities, near to that project Pehlawan Goaat area is touched and the back side of Jinnah Terminal which is now known as the rape zone for innocents.

The 85 lives taken by target killings and the burning of property, businesses and transport had effected Karachi heavily. The ethnical division and hate between Pashtuns and Mohajirs are on high due to vise versa killings between ANP and MQM while Rehman Malik, Pakistan’s Interior Minister, immediately blamed the assassination on al-Qaeda-linked terrorists bent on fueling animosity between the Mohajirs and the city’s ethnic Pashtun minority. He claimed the murder was carried out by members of the Islamist terror group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the armed wing of the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba (SSP, or Army of the Friends of the Prophet). The statement of Rehman Malik is to start another line of fire of sectarian violence in Karachi and today on 4-8-2010, hand grenade attack on mosque at Sakhi Hassan Chorangi at Nazima Bad was just to prove the interior minister’s statement as if someone know Karachi Nazima Bad is the MQM stronghold how can ANP come to Nazima Bad and doesn’t target and MQM unit office but to attack a mosque?

While it is possible that militant outfits are involved in the mayhem, it is unlikely they are solely responsible. Some of the killings are sectarian in nature. Others are not. It is far from certain the extremists would have a role in all these various kinds of murders. It seems that the game of death being played out in our largest city follows a more complicated script. Various elements appear to be involved including RAW of india. The authorities need to discover what exactly is going on and why. The most urgent need is to find some way to end the violence. Rather than telling us what he thinks should be done Mr Rehman Malik should take action against all those involved in any way in creating so much unrest.

The new spate of violence has also triggered a host of rumours and conspiracy theories that further contribute to the insecurity in the city. Few are willing to believe the havoc has been created by the militants acting on their own. But if that indeed is the case it is all the more essential that the outfits be tackled everywhere in the country. Little seems to have been done for this purpose. Mr Malik needs to tell us why?