Grappling with extortion mafia

President Zardari has finally taken notice of the menace of extortion that businesses, big and small, face in Karachi. He directed Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Thursday to submit a detailed report to him on the issue and also to take necessary measures, in co-ordination with the provincial government, to address it. What has urged the notice is the boiling over of the business communities' frustration at the lack of protection against what has come to be known as extortionist mafia.
President of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), Saeed Shafiq, has given a strike call for April 5, demanding also that the city be handed over to the Army for maintenance of law and order. The immediate cause of the business community's anger and dismay is an incident in which extortionists dragged out a man from his shop and killed him upon failure to extract money from him. A large number of shopkeepers in different markets brought their shutters down and staged a protest demonstration on a city thoroughfare, blocking traffic, burning tyres and chanting slogans.
The practice of extortion though is not something new to Karachi. It has existed for quite sometime. People not only in that city but other parts of the country readily associate extortion mafia with Karachi - the nation's commercial hub. Yet it is difficult to recall any significant attempt on the part of the government to stamp out the menace. In fact, in one of his famous outbursts at a meeting of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) last December, Home Minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza had even taunted his audience for fearing the extortionists. He was informed by the chamber president that the business community had sent letters of complaint to the CCPO as well as the Sindh government about worsening of the law and order situation, but to no avail. Mirza being in charge of the relevant ministry and having forcefully displayed that he was fully aware of the threat confronting the business community, things were expected to improve. That though was not to be. Thursday's protest demonstration illustrates that the situation has gotten worse than when he had promised to do the needful.
In fact, as the KCCI president disclosed, after the murder incident he made several phone calls and sent SMSs to the home minister as well as the interior minister, but neither answered the phone or the SMSs. It is more than obvious that the government finds it difficult to deal with this clear and present danger because most of those involved in it happen to have the backing of politically influential people belonging to different parties. Criminal elements, of course, are involved too, but they take advantage of a poor law and order situation. An attitude of ambivalence on the part of the government has aggravated matters. Since the President has asked the Federal Interior Minister to intervene and resolve the situation in co-operation with the provincial government, it amounts to an indirect admission of the fact that the extortion menace has a political linkage.
The Interior Minister, nonetheless, does not have a particularly impressive track record in brokering peace among quarrelling political players in Sindh. Unsurprisingly, the business community has little confidence in his ability to root out extortion mafia, which is obvious from KCCI's decision to close down the National Crisis Management Cell - recently established by the minister - declaring its performance as zero. The situation being as serious as it is, the government must shun political expediency and confront the problem efficiently and effectively.