The introduction This is the report of the study into the causes of violence in the city of Karachi and also to how to have a peaceful resolution. The study is part of Oxfam Novib’s Scoping exercise on Peace as a Human Right. There had been four parts of the study including civil society consultations, cultural activities, community research and interviews with key informants. We have held two consultations one with the trade unions and labour, another with civil society organisations. We have also held three cultural activities two in the communities and one in the city on international human rights day. For the community research we have held eight focus group discussions. Two FGDs with the students, one each with women, minorities, old Karachiites in Lyari Town who are mostly supporters and voters of Pakistan peoples party, another one in SITE town with the supportes and voters of Awami National Party and one in Gulshan Town with the supporters and voters of Muthahida Qoumi Movement-MQM. For the Key informants part we had interviewed Architect Arif Hassan who is an authority on the issues of Karachi. We had also interviewed Dr. Jaffar Ahmad, who is the director of Pakistan Study Centre, University of Karachi, Bilquees and Abdul Sattar Edhi of Edhi Foundation, and Anis Haroon who is a woman activist and chairperson of the National Commission on the Status of Women. We have also interviewed Mr. Mjyed Aziz who is a business leader and social activist. All the data gathered in the above mentioned activities had been used for the report. Farhat Parveen and Imran Shirvanee had written the report jointly. The issues Law and order The city of Karachi is hostage of violence for a long time. Whether it looms large in the form of strikes called by different ethnic, sectarian, and political groups, heavy firing, burning of vehicles and property, looting in broad daylight on the streets and bazaars and consequent deaths of innocent people and the conspicuous absence of law and order agencies on the crime scene is a common phenomenon. Target killing is another big issue in Karachi, which is used to settle the political, sectarian, ethnic and sometimes personal conflicts, but end up in spreading and maintaining terror among the inhabitants. Role of the law enforcement agencies A number of people interviewed for this study blame the situation to the role the law enforcement agencies play in maintaining law and order in Karachi. They point out that there is hardly any law enforcement to check the rising crime and violence in the society. Noted intellectual and architect Arif Hasan pointed out that 17 real estate brokers and three rights activists working on the issue of illegal encroachments had been murdered in the recent days and nothing was done to apprehend the murderers. “The empire of Dawood Ebrahim is being run from here,” he said. He said after the World Trade Organization-encouraged deregulation, the underground economy of foreign exchange and counter bank goods was no longer required to be hidden as the black money. Now, the old institutions are giving way to new, post-WTO institutions that encourage the black economy to establish itself as legitimate economy. “This is happening everywhere, in Mumbai, in Ho Chi Minh City, and in Seoul.” People who attended the focus group discussions said the law enforcement agencies themselves had a major vested interest in the city. Saeed Mazari of the Pearl Continental Workers’ Union said that the Rangers deployed in Sindh in general and in Karachi in particular would never want this lucrative assignment to end, and every time, the Sindh government decided that the Rangers should now leave the province, incidents of target killings would go up within days with the rumours of the situation worsening also started to circulate. He said he had read in a newspaper that the cost of making ice for them was about 100 million rupees a year. He said the total expenses of keeping Rangers was borne by the citizens of Karachi, and the Rangers know that nowhere else would they find such luxuries. “Even their headquarter is an elite building with round-the-clock air-conditioned rooms,” he pointed out. “That building was supposed to be a student hostel.” He complained that even police officials were now enjoying the lives of luxury, with official vehicles being used to take their children to school and bring them back home. On the other side, he said, the common people are still where they were ages ago, still victims of robberies and target killings. People in FGDs said police could play an important role in improving the general law and order situation. A real estate agent, Burki, said an honest police officer could help the nation undergo positive changes. “The SHO has a lot of authority; he controls his entire area,” he said. “If he decides to take the right measures, the society will definitely become a better place to live.” But they all agreed, this was not happening. Police or Rangers, however, were not singled out; generally, people blamed the entire system of governance for this situation. Architect Arif Hasan said the state system had degenerated to suit the vested interests. “Musharraf finished the system of control of power,” he said. “The residual control of power which people had in the bureaucratic system was strangulated by the present local government system. Nazim is acting like a king there is no restrictions on him previously commissioner was acting on some issues such as revenue but now Nazim has all the control over financial matters of the city. Devolution is a big cause of concern.” The concentration of power in the hands of the Nazim worries him. “All the fiscal powers are with the Nazim and except for a segment of civil servants in the Punjab nobody has contested these powers,” he pointed out. “Karachi is one big example where Nazim has all the power and there is no system of governance left, because Nazim’s Party is a very strong one. In a nutshell devolution took away whatever impartiality was left in the system of governance. Now we cannot control the populist pursuits of political parties because there is no accountability. “The present local government system is nothing but a nexus of corps commander and the Nazim to rule, something that was the basic objective of General Musharraf.” He, however, is also not in the favour of reversal of the present system. For him, that too would be a cause of concern. The best option before him is to have institutions with an empowered bureaucracy to act as a buffer between people and their representatives. Among the institutions that were established after the creation of the country, the most talked about, in terms of role it could play in betterment of the society, has been the National Commission on the Status of Women. Veteran women’s rights activist Anis Haroon is its chairperson. She, however, admitted that the role of the commission, at the moment, was very limited. “To begin with it is not autonomous,” she said. “We have held meetings with various representative groups to find out what they expected the commission to be like. We have sent our proposals to the authorities. I see the commission as an independent institution that can criticize the question the government and the law enforcing agencies whenever the occasion arises.” But she too knew this was still a dream, not a reality. Like all other government-run and state- established institutions, this too was not delivering the promised results. She said the problem lied with the conflict in interests of the government and the people. “The government never took pain to plan this city properly,” she complained. “The budgets were misdirected towards making plazas and overhead bridges. Water fountains were erected to beautify it when the citizens were not getting water to drink.” The ruling elite of the city including the political parties, she said, was also behind the criminal elements—land mafia et al. One major factor for the decline in the law and order has been highlighted as availability of arms and ammunition in Karachi. Anis Haroon termed this as an important issue for peace in the city. “Even mosques are not safe anymore,” she said. “The common man does not want arms licenses. The common man wants that state institutions to be strong enough to provide him or her with the protection.” Mafias But the political and administrative will to protect the lives of the 18 million citizens seems to have eroded. The city has been left to the mercy of various gangs and mafias. This study found that inflow of arms to Karachi has a lot to do with the issue of migration. According to the UNHCR, hundreds and thousands of Afghan refugees are living in Karachi. Members of this group are reportedly involved in businesses of land, arms, transport, and drugs. (This is apart from their other members’ involvement in the working for different industrial and commercial enterprise of the city.) Several people that were interviewed during this study acknowledged the fact that a number of gangs have sprung up in the city due to various migrations. Dr. Jaffar Ahmad, director of the Pakistan Study Centre of the University of Karachi, in his interview, pointed out that a number of such people had no sense of ownership for this city or the country. He also pointed out that the global economy had also had a great impact on the lives of the people of the city. Pakistan has rapidly transitioned into a consumer society with very commercial values.