January 28, 2001: Around 12 noon, four armed men attack a van belonging to the Darul Uloom Farooqia in Shah Faisal Colony.  Five, including teachers and students of the madrassa and the van driver, are killed in the ensuing carnage and four others injured.  The assailants, activists of a Shia organisation, are arrested.

            February 5, 2001: A group of people seated near the Hussaini Blood Bank in Soldier Bazaar are caught unawares when an armed gang arrives at the spot and opens fire.  Two men, one of them the finance secretary of a Shia sectarian party, are killed.  One man is arrested but later released for want of evidence.  No further arrests have been made…

            February 21, 2001:  Surrounded by a posse of armed henchmen, Shoaib Khan ‘Rummyclubwala,’ whose sobriquet refers to the string of plush gambling dens he runs in Karachi, steps out of his car in the city court premises.  He has arrived to seek bail before arrest in an FIR lodged against him for kidnapping.  A few minutes later, all hell breaks loose as members of a rival gang, whose leader Shoaib Khan had allegedly kidnapped, open fire.  In the shootout that follows, five people are seriously wounded.  Despite the heavy presence of the rangers and police in the area, no arrests are made.  The continuing tension between the two sides can explode in another deadly confrontation any time...

            February 22, 2001:  DSP (retd.) Syed Sadiq Hussain Shah and his son, constable Abid Hussain Shah, idly stand by their vehicle while it is being repaired at a mechanic in Madina Market, Malir.  Four armed men suddenly appear on the scene and with cold precision, aim their weapons at the father and son.  Within minutes, both are dead.  Two of the killers, who belong to the Sipah-e-Sahaba, are subsequently arrested...

             March 19, 2001:  The residence of an additional and sessions judge is broken into at dawn by three armed intruders, reportedly Bengalis.  The judge, her husband and two of her children are taken hostage.  When the police arrive on the scene, mayhem ensues, and in the exchange of gunfire between the dacoits and police, the two young children are shot dead.  One dacoit is injured and dies later in hospital.  The other two are still at large...

            May 18, 2001:  In Baldia Town, Maulana Saleem Qadri, chief of the Sunni Tehreek, is proceeding for Juma prayers with several others in a van.  Six armed men on three motorcycles ambush the vehicle and fire upon its occupants.  Maulana Qadri and five of his companions are killed.  Three others are injured.  While one of the assailants is killed in the encounter, five escape from the scene.  They have not yet been apprehended...

            Welcome to Karachi’s underworld.  A world of vice and greed, a world inhabited by smugglers, gunmen, dacoits and kidnappers.  A world that thrives on the patronage of shadowy intelligence agencies and political parties who turn to them for maintaining their spheres of influence.  Police ineptitude and corruption completes the deadly nexus that has kept Karachi reeling from a crime spree that has blighted the lives of its citizens.

            According to official figures, from 1994 to April 2001, a total of 3,978 people have been murdered in the city with the year 1995 claiming the highest number of victims at 1742.  From April 1, 2000, to March 31, 2001, there were a total of 2975 house robberies and dacoities reported in Karachi.  Meanwhile, the number of four wheelers reported stolen during the same period in the city was 3586.

     It is believed that a large number of mafia groups are active in present-day Karachi.  They include militant/terrorist wings of political parties and newly cobbled together gangs of hired assassins (most of whom belong to breakaway factions of these militant wings), as well as land-grabbers, drug traffickers, gun-runners, and, last but not least, state agencies.  According to official sources, there are currently 217 known terrorists belonging to various political parties operating in the city today.

     The recent assassination of Maulana Saleem Qadri is the latest in a series of killings labelled terrorist crimes.  In police parlance, these include crimes such as sectarian/ethnic murders, indiscriminate firing in public places and bomb blasts.  On the other hand, “ordinary” or “plain” crime includes drug trafficking/marketing, kidnapping for ransom, vehicle lifting, dacoity – in short, says a police source, “crimes in which a hidden hand is not suspected.”  However, in many instances, car lifting is the first step in the commission of another crime or an act of terrorism. 

     Law enforcement officials maintain that while car snatching/lifting and kidnapping for ransom is usually the preserve of gangs belonging to interior Sindh, terrorist crimes are carried out largely by criminals within the MQM, Haqiqi, Jiye Sindh, AZO, Sipah-e-Sahaba, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Mohammed.  The Sipah-e- Sahaba, MQM and Haqiqi are also cited as frequent perpetrators of house robberies.                                 

            Until the late ’70s, Karachi’s law and order problem was a contained one as the city followed a measured rate of growth.  However, its reputation as Pakistan’s economic jugular has, over the years, increasingly attracted an influx of people from rural areas as well as other countries such as Burma, Bangladesh and later, Afghanistan.  Most settled in Karachi’s shanty towns or katchi abadis.  Out of the 1800 square kilometres that comprise the total area of Karachi, these shanty towns today occupy 303 kilometres or 16.83 per cent while their resident population is estimated at 37 per cent of the metropolis’ entire population.  Without a corresponding increase in its civic facilities and law enforcement machinery and, as a corollary of the ruthless political culture that entrenched itself in the country, Karachi began its descent into lawlessness from which it has emerged only sporadically. 

            The turning point in the law and order situation in the country, particularly in Sindh, can be traced to the imposition of martial law in 1977 by General Zia.  The Afghan Saur revolution followed soon after in 1978 and within no time, the country was awash with all kinds of weapons, from ordinary pistols to Kalashnikovs, rocket launchers and night vision guns.  Suddenly, it seemed that everyone, whether criminal, college student or  political party activist, was brandishing these weapons.  However, while the Afghan war made weapons available, it was the Pakistan government that liberalised the issuance of arms licences and thereby created the demand for them.

            It is believed that weapons were initially supplied under official patronage to elements opposed to the PPP with the intention of rooting out the party, which enjoyed the most popularity at the time.  Says a senior journalist, “General Zia had asked one of his think tanks in Sindh to devise a strategy to counter the PPP’s popularity.  He was told that the proliferation of arms and exploitation of the criminal segment of society in Sindh would achieve the desired objective.”  Thus was initiated a process whereby politics was criminalised and the intelligence agencies assumed an active role in steering the country’s political direction.

            Former caretaker Prime Minister Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, is on record saying that arms were supplied to various parts of the country in NLC trailers during these years.  A former bureaucrat recalls, “In 1981, we seized a huge cache of arms on the Super Highway near Karachi.  Immediately thereafter, we were inundated with urgent messages from people at the top to release the weapons without delay.”

            A police source says, “Following the inception of the MRD movement in 1983, intelligence agency sleuths began patronising and harbouring criminals.  In order to keep tabs on political activity, they developed contacts even with the lower cadres of political parties, particularly in Sindh, because the intensity of the movement was greatest in this province.”

            Even after General Zia’s death, the proliferation of arms and patronage of criminals continued.  According to a police official, “In 1991, we arrested an MQM activist from Hyderabad and recovered a Kalashnikov from his possession.  He disclosed to the joint interrogation team that Kalashnikovs were supplied to his party workers by officials in khaki.  Interestingly, the boy was released within a month’s time while the inquiry report of the incident later disappeared from official records.”

            Cash flow problems experienced by the numerous ethnic and sectarian parties that had emerged in the 1980s also contributed to the rising crime graph.  Says a party activist, “Most of these parties indulged in crime, ranging from kidnapping for ransom to extortion and house robberies, to finance their political activities.”  The lower cadres of the parties were instructed not only to run the sub-divisional offices with the money collected through these means but also to inject funds into the head offices.  In the process, the modus operandi of acquiring and disbursing funds was organised and streamlined.  The very survival of many parties depended upon its criminal activities.  According to a source, “In Karachi, the real power in the MQM was wielded not by its MNAs and MPAs, but its ‘in charge’ at the unit and sector levels, because they were the ones who were financing the party.”  These offices were often held by unemployed youth who were picked up from the streets, and for whom this was their first heady taste of power. 

            Many political parties also believed that militancy was the only means to achieve their aims.  The first one to adopt this line of action was Al Zulfikar.  Sources maintain that criminalisation in politics was initiated by  the AZO when it began dispatching its activists indiscriminately to training camps abroad for what was essentially commando training.  Other parties soon followed suit.  A former activist discloses, “I later found out that the leaders of these militant organisations used to get cash handouts from Indian authorities according to the strength of their trained youth.”  Little wonder then that the militant parties also sent hardened criminals by the truckloads to training camps abroad in return for greater financial reward.  Points out one source, “The commitment of these trained youth to their parent organisations can be gauged by the fact that when Murtaza Bhutto was murdered, none of his party activists, many of whom had received training in India and Afghanistan, tried to avenge his killing.”

            Terrorists affiliated with political parties have been cited for their involvement in a litany of crimes – road robberies, bank and house dacoities, kidnappings and murder.  A case in point is Bahawal Deshak, a Jiye Sindh Taraqqi Pasand activist, who was involved in the kidnapping of former Sindh law minister Pir Mazhar-ul-Haq.  Deshak was killed in an armed encounter with the police near Naushero Feroz.  It is also a known fact that Amirullah and Fasih who have recently been convicted for the murder of Hakim Saeed belong to the MQM. 

            While the MQM had been propped up in the early 1980s to counter the Jamaat-i-Islami in Karachi, the formation of the Haqiqi was later engineered to rein in the MQM.  The role of the intelligence agencies in the creation of both was no secret.  According to an official in a federal law-enforcement agency, “The police on one occasion apprehended a Haqiqi activist for being in possession of three Kalashnikovs.  A senior army man promptly called up requesting his release on the grounds that he was ‘working for Pakistan.’”

            A few years ago, the MQM had kidnapped some activists belonging to the People’s Students Federation (PSF).  In retaliation, the PSF kidnapped some MQM workers.  The standoff was resolved when the director general of the Rangers in Sindh himself supervised the exchanging of the kidnap victims.  No arrests were made.

            Sectarian organisations also have their patrons among the intelligence agencies.  Sources reveal that Sipah-e- Sahaba’s Riaz Basra has been spotted in the company of a colonel who has also given him shelter in his house.  Similarly, when three members of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi were picked up by the police, another colonel, who introduced himself as their PRO, requested that they be released forthwith.

            A senior official in a law-enforcement agency maintains that the role of the intelligence agencies in terrorist killings since 1988 can be gauged from the fact that such murders always peak just prior to a change in government, contributing to the destabilisation of the political climate, but they abruptly cease once the new government is in place.  “A case in point was the October 10, 1999 attack on Masjid-i-Hur, when nine worshippers were killed at dawn.  After the change of government two days later, I met with a member of the ISI who said that such incidents will not take place now.  And sure enough, he was right.”  Incidentally, there is a unit of the ISI and MI in each district headquarter of the province to “assist” the local administration.

             The official quoted above has no hesitation in accusing the ISI-S (Security) of orchestrating such murders through the militants of sectarian parties, adding that Sipah-e-Sahaba terrorists are trained by the agency. “The Sipah-e-Sahaba are supported by the Haqiqi group.  The sectarian killings leading up to the Masjid-i-Hur massacre had targeted non-Mohajirs, and even in this incident, the victims were mainly Punjabis who comprise the majority of the residents in that area.  The SSP activists are largely Punjabi or Sindhi, a fact that indicates the involvement of the Haqiqi in the crime.”

            Meanwhile, the MQM is said to be more aligned with the Shia sectarian parties.  This is corroborated by the fact that there has been no sectarian strife in the areas of Karachi under the MQM’s influence, which includes the portion of district Central where the large Shia community of Rizvia Colony is located.

            For many hardened criminals, joining a political party offers several benefits.  Not only does it hold out the promise of shelter and protection in the event of apprehension by the police, but it also gives them access to a ready-made gang.  Reveals a source, “They always share their crime money with the party leaders in exchange for protection.”

            A senior intelligence agency official discloses that of all the militant groups operating in Karachi today, the MQM boasts the most foolproof modus operandi for executing targeted hits.  “They manage to stump investigators because they cover their tracks so well.  One group is assigned to steal or snatch a vehicle and park it at a designated spot.  Another is assigned the task of driving the vehicle to another pre-determined spot.  Yet another is entrusted with the task of obtaining weapons for the hit.  Finally, there are the hit-men who carry out the actual killing.  All these groups work independently of each other and are given as much information as their particular task requires.  This way even if one group is apprehended, they cannot divulge much information.  As a matter of fact, the operatives involved in such crimes are specifically told to provide the police with all the information they have in order to spare themselves unnecessary torture.   Says a member of one of these groups, “Anyway, we know that we can always retract our earlier statements made in police custody by claiming they were made under coercion – everyone is familiar with the methods of interrogation employed by the police.”

            Says a police official, “For hit-men, killing is routine work; they simply accomplish the task assigned to them without questioning the motive behind it.”  He cites the example of Hakim Saeed’s murder, where the two MQM terrorists convicted of the crime were unable to provide any information about its motive because they were genuinely unaware of it.

            According to the official, the breakaway factions of the MQM, including the Haqiqi and the Goga groups, practice virtually the same modus operandi as the Muttahida in carrying out assassinations. 

            Militants belonging to other parties have their own distinctive styles of operation.  Says one source, “The activists of a Sindh-based militant organisation camouflage the numbers of the vehicles they use with black markers.”   These distinctive modus operandi are often reliable clues as to the identity of the perpetrators.

            Members of terrorist gangs also speak in code while an operation is underway.  As a source reveals, “Ladoo banto  (distribute sweets) is the signal to detonate a bomb, tohfa (gift) means assassinate while mohalley ki safai karo  (clean the neighbourhood) is an order to eliminate the opposition.”

            Incidentally, says a police source, if apprehended, militants from the interior of Sindh and Balochistan are usually the most difficult to break even under severe torture.  “Since they have often led harsh lives, they have a very high threshold of pain,” he maintains.  A member of the underworld agrees with this contention, citing the instance of an Iranian Baloch arrested by the police in a major crime three years ago who, despite being tortured the entire day, refused to divulge any information.  “In fact,” he says, “when the police re-entered the room, they found that he had stitched both his lips shut.  He handed them a slip of paper on which was written, ‘If you have the guts, try and make me confess now.’”

            Some sources hold that while initially 90 per cent of crime that occured in Karachi was carried out under party instructions, it is now largely the domain of erstwhile activists of these parties, most of whom have formed their individual gangs.  

            Mercenaries usually live from moment to moment, spending lavishly  on material comforts and bacchanalian parties flowing with wine and featuring high-priced call girls, thus remaining dependent on a life of crime.  A few of them successfully make the transition to a “respectable” life, after investing in property and business from money made through their criminal activities. 

            Also operating in the city are dozens of gangs unaffiliated with any political organisation.  Involved in all kinds of crime ranging from vehicle theft and house breaking to murder, they have 10 to 15 core members and a fringe network of youngsters from 12 to 15 years of age who work as lookouts for them.  Discloses a source, “They provide group leaders with details about police activities in their areas and other required information and are paid for their services on a daily or weekly basis.” 

            Gang members have been known to adopt colourful aliases such as Cheeta, Cheel, Chingari, Langra, T.T., Shera, Toofan, Commando, Kalashnikov, Sheedi and Boora among others. 

            Some of these gang members are illegal immigrants who, according to the latest population census of 2000, number 30 lakh in a total of 130 lakh residents of Karachi, the largest concentration of aliens in the country.  A random survey carried out in 1993 had estimated there were 1,455,462 illegal immigrants in the city, an increase of 184 per cent since 1989 when they numbered 511,835.  Bengalis form the largest percentage, followed by Burmese and Afghans.  In certain localities of Karachi such as Machhar Colony, one can even find signboards in Bengali.  Reportedly, a Bengali newpaper is also brought out in the city.  While many illegal immigrants engage in lawful occupations, such as the fishing and garment industry or work as domestic servants, there is estimated to be a sizeable number that are engaged in criminal activities.  The pattern of this criminal activity tends to be divided along ethnic lines: Afghanis are involved in arms smuggling/dealing, home-made explosives and drug trafficking, while Bengalis are more active in house thefts, prostitution and the flesh trade.

            According to a source, “The Federal Investigation Agency, which is supposed to maintain a check on the entry of illegal immigrants into Pakistan, allows them to slip into the country because they are a source of income for the Agency.  The job of the deputy director FIA at Pakistan’s international airports is, in fact, considered the most lucrative post.”

            In any society, the main line of defence against crime is the police. In Karachi and the rest of Sindh, the police, apart from the MI and ISI units mentioned earlier, is also reinforced by the Rangers, a large proportion of whose personnel are drawn from the army.  As the Rangers’ actual task is to guard the country’s frontiers, they are present in Sindh on deputation, and draw salaries almost twice that of police personnel.  “However,” says a senior official in a law enforcing agency, “whenever it is proposed that they be sent back to their original duties, the crime rate in the province mysteriously goes up.” 

            Nevertheless, tales about the inefficiency of the police force and the rampant corruption within its workings are legion.  Sources blame it largely on the budget of six billion rupees allocated to Pakistan’s police, citing it as grossly inadequate.  At a recent seminar for police personnel, it was pointed out that while the highly regarded London Metropolitan Police has a budget of 1.5 billion pounds for a city with far less population than that of Karachi, the entire police force in Pakistan, with 90,000 personnel, has about one-third that amount at its disposal.  Reveals a source, “Thanas (police stations) are totally dependent on bhatta from hawkers, roadside florists, polish walas, beggars etc. for their day to day running expenses – bhatta from shops is usually demanded by political parties rather than the police. Police stations in Karachi East, the largest district in the city, comprising almost 45 per cent of Karachi’s total area, probably make the most ‘beat money’ – maybe as much as 15 to 20 lakhs a month.” 

            In the official police budget, not even a single rupee is allocated towards the investigation of crimes and facilities that do exist for this purpose are primitive.  For example, currently available resources for the examination of blood samples can only determine whether the sample is human or animal.  Investigating officers are not even provided with basic items such as rubber gloves or test tubes for proper collection of evidence.

            In the absence of adequate resources or an effective criminal justice system to counter terrorism, the police, often the target of militant political activists’ wrath, began responding in kind.  When any of their personnel or police informers were murdered, with their bodies stuffed into gunny bags and dumped by the roadside, they meted out identical treatment to activists in their custody.  At the height of the confrontation between the police and militants, death in “police encounters” became the order of the day. 

            Meanwhile, the role played by the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) in tackling certain types of crime in Karachi cannot be under-estimated. The CPLC has been particularly successful in controlling the incidence of kidnapping for ransom. Since 1990, from a total of 245 such cases, it has solved 203 and apprehended 85 gangs of kidnappers while 42  of the cases remained unsolved. Says CPLC chief Jamil Yousuf, “Kidnapping for ransom cases had peaked by 1990, but nothing was being done about it.  Then the army chief Asif Nawaz’s cousin’s two children were kidnapped.  Asif Nawaz held a three-hour long meeting with me, after which military intelligence 303 as well as 20 to 25 SSG commandos were assigned to work in tandem with us.  Within one week, on November 21, 1990, the gang was busted, about 11 of the 20 members were arrested in the first raid.  The liaison between the CPLC and MI under the corps commander began with this case. We busted gangs of kidnappers every week after that.”

            According to Jamil Yousuf, such gangs tend to split after working together on two or three cases, usually falling out over the division of the ransom money.  “There have only been three cases in which the kidnap victims died.  The Bhoja Air chairman’s son was one, but that was probably the result of enmity.  The way the kidnappers did it showed spite.   Kidnappers never kill anyone if they have abducted them for money.  There have been four cases in which the victims returned home after 14 to 24 months.”

            Over the years, the CPLC has acquired several technologically advanced methods for solving kidnapping cases.  Voice matching is a technique they have had recourse to for some time. “We give gangs code names according to their voices and group them accordingly,” says Jamil Yousuf.  Apart from this, the CPLC now has the software that helps determine how an individual may appear with or without certain facial features such as a beard or how he may have aged over several years.  Their spatial crime analysis system enables an overview of crime patterns to be charted on a map of Karachi.  Meanwhile, their digitalised map of Karachi, marked with the location of each street telephone booth in the city, is a vital tool in tracking the movements of kidnappers and zeroing on their hideouts.  “We can’t track mobile phones but we can get the number blocked so that kidnappers are compelled to resort to public telephones,” discloses Jamil Yousuf.  He strongly recommends that the purchase of a mobile phone line must be made subject to the submission of the buyer’s photograph. 

            It seems that there are suggestions aplenty for the improvement of the law and order situation in Karachi – from the deweaponisation of Pakistani society and the creation of a national vehicle authority to the registration of illegal aliens, an increase in the police budget and the strengthening of the criminal justice system.  However, the implementation of these measures requires a political will that no government has yet had the ability, or courage, to demonstrate.