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Now the Muttahida-Haqiqi war
The target-killing in the last seven days in Karachi reached
another peak on Sunday when 13 people were killed, most of them
belonging to two factions of the MQM. Earlier, on June 4, the toll
was 11 MQM (Haqiqi), two MQM (Altaf), one PPP and one Jama’at-e
Islami. This Sunday, MQM-H says seven of its members were killed;
the rest were MQM-A members, barring one who was an ANP worker. The
Karachi police has arrested a confidant of Baitullah Mehsud with Al
Qaeda links who has confessed to plans to cause widespread mayhem in
Karachi. A large collection of suicide jackets too has been
captured, implying that as many suicide-bombers were expected to be
in Karachi, ready to kill innocent citizens to add to the confusion
of mindless homicide.
Most of the killings took place in Malir, Landhi, Korangi and North
Karachi, describing the parameters of the new battlefield. The
Karachi police chief confirmed that group killings had started five
days ago. He said “political intervention would be required to end
the targeted killings of political workers”. But the truth is that
“political intervention” may have been happening for the last few
months in the opposite direction. According to pro-MQM websites, the
leader of Tehreek-e Insaf Pakistan, Mr Imran Khan, has been trying
to cure the internal rifts of MQM-H, as between the Afaq Ahmed and
Amir Khan factions, the latter rumoured to be leaning in favour of
MQM-A. When Mr Imran Khan was preparing his “London case” against
MQM-A after the killing of his party workers on May 12, 2007, he had
allegedly relied on the Afaq faction to gather details of the MQM
atrocities. Sensing danger in this new development, the Sindh
government had tried in recent months to keep Mr Khan out of Karachi
under one pretext or another.
According to MQM sources, Mr Imran Khan’s efforts to get the MQM-H
factions to reunite were allegedly supplemented by efforts from the
APDM (All Parties Democratic Movement) and the Jama’at-e Islami.
According to one report, a leader of MQM-H’s Afaq Group admitted
that a five-member delegation of the party had a meeting with Imran
Khan in Lahore in May, which lasted for around two hours. Several
issues, including reconciliation between the Afaq and Amir factions
of the party, also came under discussion: “Our delegation met the
PTI chief Imran Khan and discussed the Muttahida’s vendetta against
our workers, the no-go areas issue as well as the frequent killing
of our workers in Karachi”.
The MQM suffered a split during the 1990s when it was under pressure
from the state. Mr Altaf Hussain kicked the Afaq-Amir group out of
the party and accused it of being a proxy for state “agencies”. In
subsequent elections the MQM-A became the repository of a majority
political mandate of Karachi, and the rebel group was consigned to
the margins as Haqiqi, meaning “real”. It is universally accepted
that when a split takes place “among brothers” it is most violent
and merciless. It is always a wise course to help contending
factions compose their differences, but in this case the result
looks like a regrouping before the inception of a bigger war.
A rebel spook, currently running a human rights outfit for the
“disappeared persons”, had once revealed that Haqiqi was used by the
intelligence agencies to weaken the street power of Altaf Hussain.
It had obviously not worked. In fact it had made permanent a
dangerous urban split that the agencies could not have wanted had
they known in advance what their policies would bring about. Eqbal
Ahmad, writing in Dawn (August 17, 1995), stated: “The press as well
as human rights organisations confirm what is public knowledge in
Karachi — that the MQM-H practises terror and extortion as does the
MQM-A; but one is tolerated by the government while the other is
targeted by it — a fact which devalues the government’s authority,
making it a partner in crime rather than the guardian of law.”
This is what is going to happen if efforts to make divided parties
fall upon each other in internal violence bear fruit. This policy,
pursued by the government or by politicians, is going to further
complicate the map of Karachi’s violence and make the city a sitting
duck for the suicide-bombers of Baitullah Mehsud, who desperately
wants to distract the Pakistan Army from its mission in the tribal
areas. *
Daily Times Editorial: June 8,
2009 |
