Why Not To Bring Army In Karachi?

As soon as MQM demanded to bring Army in Karachi in order to provide security to the people, most of the traditional political rivals of MQM made it the target point for bashing. According to the MQM`s stand, it wanted to involve army to restore peace in Sindh so that the politicized Police and Rangers (as they also act as per order of the provincial government) cannot be utilized against the political rivals.

Honestly speaking, there looks to be no harm in such a demand from MQM. The worst situation of law & order of Karachi is an undeniable evidence of how our provincially administered law-enforcement agencies have performed in respect of restoring peace. Then, why not to require the support of Army? However, very strange criticism came up from the rest of the political and religious parties on this demand. PTI, PML-N, JI, JUI-F, PML-F expressed their complete disagreement to the use of army. They suggested that the Police and Rangers be use in Karachi for this purpose.

The common people of the country were surprised to see such an entirely different stance from these parties regarding the use of Army. Because these were the parties which themselves had been repeatedly demanding the army in Karachi for each and every activity whether it was the matter of providing security to the people, de-weaponization or taking actions against the land grabbers. Even for the sake of implementation of the Supreme Court`s order for delimitations, verification of voters list and for holding the elections, the army was brought in exclusively on the demand of the same critics.

The question is, does it not look illogical that, for the sake of door-to-door verification of the voters list during which the troops had to deal with the common family members including mostly the ladies, political parties preferred army. But, in order to take actions against the criminals, the call of army is termed as unnecessary? The question is, why are they now expecting something good from the same LEA`s which, they had previously declared “politicized”?  

It is on record that at the time of signing the Charter Of Democracy (COD), all the political and religious parties including specially PML-N and PPP mutually agreed not to repeat their “mistakes” of the 90`s. To tell the truth, it was an on-record confession before the people of Pakistan by the both ex- ruling parties. In a talk show before the elections, the PML-N`s Khwaja Saad Rafique tried to clarify his party`s position in comparison to others saying, “The PML-N has now come out of the politics of “Dore-e-Jaheliyat” of the 90`s”. In fact, the statement is truly representative of what the ruling parties had been doing during the 90`s against their political rivals.

Furthermore, in 2007, not only the media, but also the Pakistani judiciary revealed that they had been enslaved by the both political as well as the military establishments for the last 60 years. (It needs not to mention that how they were misused by the rulers against their political rivals). The question is, in such a situation, can a political rival, whether person or a party, who is on the hit list of the rulers find any forum from where he can seek justice from?

That is the reality that all the politicians are well aware of, and this is also the reason why none of the opposition parties trusts its rival ruling parties. This distrust once again came up before the common people at the time of appointment of a caretaker Prime Minister of Pakistan. The political and religious parties did not trust the nominees from their rivals. They rejected them by making several objections and the most common and important objection was their direct or indirect affiliation with the political rivals. 

Taking into account all these bitter facts, will it be fair to expect MQM to blindly believe in the imminent targeted operations from the government led by its political rivals? Honestly speaking, of course not! But, the political rivalry would say, “why not?”

Therefore, it is the need of the hour that a politically independent and impartial agency, Pakistan Army, should come to Karachi in order to restore peace and should conduct targeted operations wherever it is necessary so that the necessary actions and/or operations can be conducted in the right direction and only against the real criminals, unlike in the past. That is the only way through which the peace in Karachi can be restored. However, in the other case, the situation of the city will get worsened.      

(Also at http://blogs.thenewstribe.com/blog/69333/why-not-to-bring-army-in-karachi/ )