Sindh:
Fragile Peace
Tushar
Ranjan Mohanty
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management
Baba Ladla
alias Noor Muhammad, the notorious Lyari gangster
who carried a reward of PKR three million, was killed
on February 1, 2017, during a shootout with Rangers personnel
in the Lyari Town area of Karachi, the provincial capital
of Sindh. Two of Baba Ladla’s close associates, Sikandar
aka Sikko and Mohammad Yaseen aka Mama,
were also killed in the encounter. During the operation,
Head Constable Fayyaz and Constable Tufail were also killed.
One Kalashnikov, two 9mm pistols and a hand grenade were
also recovered from their possession. The “most wanted”
suspects had been involved in numerous terrorist incidents,
according to a Press Release issued by the Rangers: “Baba
Ladla was wanted in more than 74 crimes by Police.”
The Press
Release also revealed that Baba Ladla had, with the help
of Peoples' Aman Committee [a militant group tied to the
Pakistan People's Party (PPP)] chief Uzair Baloch, committed
the murders of Shera Pathan, Arshad Pappu and Yasir Arafat,
rival Lyari gangsters allegedly patronized by the Muttahida
Qaumi Movement (MQM)]. It also stated that, in March 2013,
Baba Ladla had abducted a group of Muhajirs and murdered
them. Of the other gangster gunned down in the operation,
Sikander was wanted in more than 15 crimes, and was described
as a close aide of Baba Ladla and also his facilitator.
In April 2012, Sikander had committed the murder of Station
House Officer (SHO) Fawad Khan while in the same year
he had also killed Constable Asif. In 2013, Sikandar had
tortured and subsequently killed two other men. He had
also been involved in the sale and purchase of illegal
weapons.
On January
28, 2017, Police shot dead a Lyari gangster, identified
as Irfan Pathan, who was wanted in more than 100 target
killing cases, including murders of political workers
and rivals, in Singo Lane of the Chakiwara area in Lyari
Town. Officials said Irfan Pathan was a ‘shooter’ of the
Faisal Pathan group of the Uzair Baloch gang, and he was
also involved in multiple rape cases and had abducted
several women from the area. Four other gangsters, identified
as Rehan Pathan, Yousuf Pathan, Ismail and Ehsan Lala,
managed to escape under the cover of fire. A cache of
arms and ammunition were recovered from their hideout,
including 301 grenades of different types, four .303-rifles,
four SMGs, two G-3 rifles, one 9mm pistol, one 30-bore
pistol, one 22-bore pistol, one 32-bore pistol, one LMG,
one 12-bore repeater, two 30-bore mini-Kalashnikovs, four
jackets, two telescopes, one gas mask and a huge quantity
of ammunition.
On January
12, 2017, three gangsters were killed in an intelligence-driven
targeted raid by Rangers personnel in the Yousaf Goth
locality of Gadap Town in Karachi. One accomplice managed
to escape, while a heavy cache of automatic weapons &
ammunition was recovered.
Another
notorious gangster, Bilal aka Bhaiyya, who carried
a reward of PKR 1.5 million, was killed in a Police shootout
in the Gao Godam area of Lyari Town in Karachi on December
7, 2015. Bilal, who was affiliated with the Uzair Baloch
gang, was wanted in at least 100 criminal cases, including
50 murders, according to Deputy Superintendent of Police
(DSP) Zahid Hussain. Three of Bilal’s associates, Mullah
Sohail, Yousuf Pathan and Rehan Pathan, managed to flee
from the spot during the operation.
After Bada
Ladla’s killing, Muhammad Saeed, Director General (DG)
Rangers, visited different parts of Lyari on February
4, 2017. In a briefing on the security situation, he said
peace would be established in every part of Karachi. Terrorist
elements and their aiders and abettors would be strictly
dealt with and no successors of Baba Ladla would be allowed
to raise their heads.
Due to
the Rangers Operation, Karachi, the commercial capital
of the country, had witnessed a seven-year low in terrorism
related violence. The Sindh Rangers were called in on
September 4, 2013, when violence in the city was at a
peak, with 1,668 fatalities. According to South Asia
Terrorism Portal (SATP) data, the violence in the
Province has dropped to its lowest since 2010. Sindh recorded
271 fatalities, including 76 civilians, 24 SF personnel
and 171 terrorists in 2016, in comparison to 718 such
fatalities in 2015, including 350 civilians, 58 SF personnel
and 310 terrorists. While the overall fatalities recorded
a 62.25 per cent decrease in 2016 in comparison to previous
year, civilian, SF and terrorist/organised crime categories
had seen a 78.28, 58.62 and 44.83 per cent decline, respectively.
The annual
report of the Sindh Police released on December 27, 2016,
disclosed that there was a 32.93 percent decline in killings
in 2016, when 666 persons were killed, as compared to
2015, which saw 993 fatalities. According to the data,
incidents of targeted killing also decreased by 71.69
per cent, with 45 persons shot dead in 2016, as compared
to 159 in the previous year. Karachi also witnessed a
sharp decline in incidents of terrorism, kidnappings for
ransom and extortion by 60, 57 and 34 percents respectively
in 2016, only two incidents of terrorism were reported
in the outgoing year as compared to the previous year,
incidents of kidnappings for ransom dropped to 21 from
49 in 2015, and 146 cases of extortion were reported as
compared to 224 in the previous year. The Police report
claimed that the number of target killings had reduced
because of the ‘good performance’ of the Police, but did
not mention the achievements of the Sindh Rangers' Karachi
operations that have been ongoing for the past three years.
Meanwhile,
a Sindh Rangers report issued on December 29, 2016, claimed
that a total of 446 'target killers' had been arrested
in 2016, most of them belonging to the 'militant wings'
of different political groups. According to the report,
which focused on the ongoing Karachi operation, Sindh
Rangers conducted 1,992 operations across the city over
the year, during which more than 2,847 suspected criminals
were taken into custody. A break-up of the numbers shows
that of the 446 target killers arrested by the Rangers,
348 belonged to various political groups, 87 had links
to Lyari gangs, while 11 were affiliated with different
sectarian groups. In the report, the Rangers also claimed
that murders and targeted killings in the city hit an
all-time low in the year, with 87 people falling victim,
compared to 199 in the preceding year. The report added
that at least 1,845 arms, including machine guns, light
machine guns, sub-machine guns, rocket launchers, detonators,
pistols/revolvers and explosives, had been confiscated
during the year. A total of 194,579 rounds of ammunition
of different calibres were also recovered.
The number
of major incidents (each involving three or more fatalities)
decreased by 43.33 per cent in 2016 in comparison to the
previous year. Sindh accounted for 34 major incidents
of violence, resulting in 134 deaths in 2016, as against
60 such incidents, accounting for 295 fatalities in 2015.
There was
also a considerable decrease in the number of explosion-related
incidents in 2016. In comparison to 26 blasts resulting
in 102 fatalities and 202 injured in 2015, 2016 recorded
19 blasts resulting in just three fatalities and 64 injured.
Similarly, there was just one suicide attack of sectarian
nature in which at least 13 persons, including five Policemen,
were injured, as Police foiled two separate suicide blasts
during Eid prayers in the Khanpur tehsil of Shikarpur
District in Sindh. There was also relative calm in the
Province from the perspective of sectarian violence. While
the number of incidents of sectarian violence decreased
from 30 in 2015 to 19 in 2016, the resultant deaths came
down from 164 in 2015 to 25 in 2016 – a 84.75 per cent
decline.
Despite
the law-enforcement agencies’ crackdown on the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
(LeJ)
in Sindh and the killing of its key leaders, the outfit
still managed to carry out 17 attacks through 2016, 10
of them in Karachi alone. The Islamabad based security
think-tank Pak Institute of Peace Studies (PIPS) claimed,
in a report, that 10 people were killed and another 30
injured in the 10 attacks carried out by the LeJ in Karachi
in 2016. Muhammad Amir Rana, PIPS Director, asserted that
the terror group was trying to fill the void created by
the elimination of its main leaders and weakening infrastructure.
The operational capacity of this terrorist formation was
eroded further in 2016, as compared to 2015, with the
arrest of LeJ Sindh chief Naeem Bukhari aka Atta-ur-Rehman.
Conventional
crimes, however, remain on the rise. Citizens-Police Liaison
Committee (CPLC) crime statistics indicate a proportional
increase in conventional crimes, such as robberies, car
snatching, thefts and mobile snatching, by 24 per cent.
According to CPLC data, till mid-December 2016, 14,974
people had been deprived of their mobile phones at gunpoint,
while 17,790 mobile phones were stolen. On average, around
15 vehicles were snatched per month, the highest in November,
when 23 vehicles were reportedly stolen. Through 2016,
nearly 1,500 cars were stolen, 2,342 motorcycles were
snatched, and another 21,028 motorcycles were stolen.
In its
January 9, 2017 report, CPLC identified sixty 'hot spots'
in Karachi, where street gangs operate and most incidents
of snatchings take place. These areas included PIDC, Tariq
Road, Sakhi Hassan, Hassan Square, Bahadurabad, Aisha
Manzil and the NIPA Chowrangi which are high-risk areas,
and even some areas in the city's posh localities, such
as Defence and Clifton, make it to the list. All this,
even after more than three years of the Karachi Operations,
which claimed great success according to the Rangers and
Provincial Government.
Almost
75 per cent of militants on the terrorism watch list for
their alleged links with over a dozen proscribed organisations
remain untraceable in Karachi, according to official documents.
The Sindh counterterrorism forces were unable to trace
142 of a total of 190 terrorists, who were listed in ‘category
A’, a term used for terrorists put on exceptional risk
or high risk. Six most wanted terrorists belonging to
proscribed organizations had shifted to Holland, Bangladesh,
Dubai, Ethiopia, United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan,
official documents said. Interviews with police officers
and documents prepared by Sindh counterterrorism forces
further revealed that “there is a strong possibility that
some of these militants must have planned to execute recent
terror attacks in Karachi.”
Despite
of geo-tagging of 7,724 madrassas completed on
September 4, 2016, around 93 madrassas in Sindh continue
to have solid links with terrorist or banned outfits,
and intelligence agencies have credible information about
the activities taking place there. Under the NAP, geo-tagging
of 7,724 madrassas had been completed by the Sindh
Special Branch and the IT Branch, helping security agencies
define their exact location and to maintain a strict watch
on them. Of this total, 3,110 were located in Karachi,
1,290 in Hyderabad, 750 in Mirpurkhas, 1,536 in Sukkur
and 1,037 in Larkana Division. Sources indicated that
there were 10,030 madrassas in Sindh, of which
2,309 madrassas had been sealed under different charges,
while 1,184 were yet to be registered.
On August
11, 2016, the Supreme Court assailed the Sindh Government
for not taking proper steps to ensure maintenance of law
and order in the provincial capital. During the proceedings
of the ‘Karachi law and order case’, Chief Justice Asif
Saeed Khan Khosa inquired about the status of CCTV cameras
to be placed at different locations in the city. The Chief
Secretary replied that an amount of rupees ten billion
had been allocated for new CCTV cameras. The Court responded,
"The issue is not allocating funds but also spending
them where they are required to be spent… We want full
implementation on the orders of the Karachi law and order
case."
While Sindh
in general and Karachi in particular have seen a ray of
relative light after years of darkness, a confrontation
between the Federal and Provincial Governments regarding
Policing power has undermined operational effectiveness.
In particular, the Provincial Government had questioned
the ‘targeted operations’ by the Rangers, which is a Federal
Security Force. In every 90 days, the rangers needed Provincial
Government’s validation for further continuation. The
clash between two different political parties, PML-Nawaz
at the centre and Pakistan People’s Party in the Province,
threatens the future successes against the terrorism-crime
nexus in Sindh.
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