We Provide Votes in Lyari
Farheen Rizvi on 12, Jun 2013
Recently, MQM Coordination Committee members Slammed CM Sind for his meeting with gangsters of Lyari (PAC) right after taking his oath as newly elected CM. MQM after elections Repeated Stem 2013 have decided to sit in the opposition benches in Sind unlike the last tenure in which they had a long reconciliation relationship with PPP in Sind and in Islamabad. The relationship saw many ups and downs, and most of the down came on two important issues; one was local body elections in Sind, which were delayed by PPP and the second was PPP support for Peoples Amn Committee(PAC). People see them as criminals involved in extortion, drugs and murders. According to MQM, Karachi has suffered in economy and peace because of the rise of PAC in Karachi in the last five year but PPP categorically denies the facts. The reality is that PPP talks out of both sides of the mouth, which is witnessed by all of us but media never questions them on this particular issue.
It was 2011 when dissident Zulfiqar Mirza came out on media and adopted PAC gangsters as his children and accepted the responsibility of patronizing them. This stand, along with MQM was not welcomed by PPP and then minister Wassan denied the support and announced the head money on all the criminals of PAC. That pacified MQM for few months but the growing pressure from criminals made PPP release all. PPP took this action close to Election 2013, which forced MQM to leave the government. After Abbas Town incident; in which MQM criticized PPP of not being there with the victims; It gave Qadir Patel a chance to blackmail MQM by owning PAC gangsters as PPP children. Reportedly, after swearing in as CM, Qaim Ali Shah attended a dinner arranged by PAC gangster Uzair Baluch, which provincial minister Sharjeel Memon had to deny on media by saying that we don’t have any relationship with PAC. After few days, Qaim Ali Shah had to justify his visit to Lyari that the place is the stronghold of PPP voters and there is no harm in visiting them.
The question that arises is that what would PPP have to say about the operation led by Chaudry Aslam of CID Informal language and his statement for media in which he showed the weapons recovered from Lyari, and the resistance faced by force while entering in the area. Ch.Aslam informed media that gangsters are fighting with the arms looted from NATO trucks. If in an area where CID Informal language force can’t enter, and rangers get killed after kidnapping but PPP ministers can roam freely calling it “stronghold,” then they are answerable to the people that how did the gangsters with sophisticated arms ended up in the area. Why is drug business booming in the area and who kidnapped rangers in the area? The world has seen the nightmarish movie of how another gangster Arshad Pappu was killed by PAC gangsters. Dina temple-Reston of National Public Radio of USA quoted in her 2013 interview with Uzair in Lyari, “Baloch and his men control Lyari Town so completely, the police no longer go into it. The last time they tried, in April, they were met by a hail of bullets. The Lyari operation went on for days before the police returned to their posts.” Yusuf of the Pakistan Human Rights told Dina, “The police were completely out-gunned, she says, and Baloch’s men even managed to destroy an armored personnel carrier and kill a soldier who was there.”
Uzair Baloch told Dina on questioning about his services for PPP, said that “for PPP, we provide votes in Lyari.” If snatching votes through spreading terror around city was the policy of PPP for the last five years, then they have failed to achieve. In Karachi, PPP lost NA-239 to Salman Baloch of MQM and NA-258 to Abdul Hakeem Baloch of PMLN which they won previously.
Dr. Nichola Khan, the writer of “Mohajir Militancy in Pakistan,” said during an interview to ‘Jewish Journal’ that “Rangers were allegedly involved in setting up armed ‘People’s Amn Committee’ boys in a house in Liaquatabad. This was interpreted locally as PPP-engineered pressure in the lead-up to the elections (of 2013), to keep the pressure on MQM in the arena of national politics.”
PPP called Lyari their second Larkana but a long history of gangs’ presence in Lyari under different names and PPP’s voting history is unfolding a different story. Whatever the plan was but election results have shown that PPP and PAC have failed in their plan of capturing the votes by spreading terror.
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