My beloved Karachi has become a muggers’ paradise once again, with criminals roaming the streets fearlessly, and mugging and snatching with a sense of impunity, as can be seen in the accompanying image from a CCTV footage in which a mugger is running away with the handbag of a woman in Karachi’s Bahadurabad area. The woman happens to be the assistant commissioner of that very area, and that is an indication of how seriously the criminals fear the writ of the law.
They kill innocent people when they offer the slightest of resistance or try to argue or plead their way out of the tight spot they find themselves in. The fact is that they kill people just to make a statement; hand over whatever you have silently and move on … that is life, live it or lose it.
Almost a dozen lives have been lost in such incidents during the current month itself, which is just about halfway through. The lives lost include that of a young man who was shot in front of his wife and children in Gulistan-i-Jauhar. The murderers are still at large and will probably never be put behind the bars. Or, they would be released on bail if they are caught somehow. It is the family that will live with the trauma and the resultant grief for the rest of their lives till it is time, God forbid, for them to lose theirs in another such incident.
Time and again, I have highlighted the worsening law and order situation in the city through contributions to these columns, like ‘The city of darkness’ (Jan 4), ‘Nightmare city’ (Jan 14) and ‘Karachi left at the mercy of killers’ (Feb 27). Several other people have done the same, but nothing has changed one bit.
The situation is going from bad to worse to unimaginable to unliveable with each passing day. Maybe those running the affairs of this orphan
city are waiting for some kind of divine intervention to turn things around. They should actually be thinking of divine wrath.
MALIK UL QUDDOOS
KARACHI
