EDITORIAL: Law and order situation in the nation’s financial capital Karachi seems to be on a downwards slide, once again. In a latest incident in Gulistan-i-Jauhar area, an office-bearer of the Sindh Bar Council (SBC) was shot dead by masked men riding a motorbike while he was on his way back home after dropping his daughter at her school. Outraged at the murder, lawyers boycotted proceedings in the city courts; Chief Justice of the Sindh High Court also ordered that no adverse orders be passed during the course of the day, only urgent matters may be taken up.
According to the SSP-East, it appeared to be an incident of ‘targeted killing’, a phrase that may have evoked for the Karachiites distressful memories of the not-too-distant a past when targeted killings were a daily occurrence. PTI legislators in the Sindh Assembly, Khurram Sher Zaman and Ghaffar Bilal, who attended the funeral of the slain SBC official, told journalists they had been raising their concern in the assembly about the worsening law and order situation, and had also protested before the Central Police Office the killing of a party leader, Sakhawat Rajput, but to no avail.
This murder may be the result of personal enmity. Media reports, however, suggest criminal elements are back in business robbing people at gunpoint, abducting for ransom, peddling drugs and collecting protection money from traders. Unfortunately, the provincial government remains in denial.
It may be recalled that its leadership had not taken kindly to Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed’s arrival last May in Karachi to review the law and order situation and other security issues in meetings with Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah and Governor Imran Ismail. Shah had reacted by saying if Sheikh Rasheed wanted to come he could come, but that his government had established peace with the help of police before and would do that again.
In other words, all was well. PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had backed the CM, saying “Sindh police have the full potential to restore peace in the province”, adding the taunt “the interior minister is ready to give a lecture about another province but is not ready to protect journalists in Islamabad.”
The ruling party leaders in the province may like to view things differently; that though does not change the reality the people face every day. One reason for the prevailing state of affairs could be the rising prices of basic necessities of life, making otherwise normal individuals to turn to crime to make ends meet. But then conditions in other provinces are not as bad there as they are in Sindh.
The other main reason seems to be poor policing. Admittedly, corruption and other malpractices are common to law enforcers in the rest of the country. In Karachi, though, an open secret is that many officers have developed a nexus with criminal elements; lots of money changes hands for appointments in police stations that have the potential of offering highly lucrative returns.
Not all in the force are corrupt, of course. But thwarting those who honesty want to do their duty, aside from unwelcome interventions by their political bosses, are two shortcomings: the size of the force is much smaller than the required number; and it is grossly underfunded. Instead of adopting a defensive posture the government needs to address these issues.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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