21 SEPT 2011

BARELY had Karachi begun to recover from the ethnic and political violence of July and August when Monday’s attack on the house of a senior Crime Investigation Department official, claimed by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, reminded the city that it also remains vulnerable to Islamist militancy. Police officials say they had intelligence that a terrorist attack was planned for one of the city’s upmarket areas around this time and that they had stepped up security in Clifton and Defence, but information at that level is far too broad to be useful in such large metropolitan areas housing hundreds of thousands of people. The incident demonstrates how the threat posed by the TTP and other external terrorist groups is of an entirely different nature than that presented by the city’s indigenous ethnic and political gangs, and needs a tailored and much more robust response.

The first step is to resource and empower the police and civilian intelligence organisations to gather intelligence that is far more specific and technically advanced than what they are currently capable of acquiring. Without doing so, it will be impossible to police such a large city that is constantly expanding in an unplanned number. There is no record, for example, of the number of unregistered madressahs that exist in Karachi and provide easy safe havens for militants shuttling between Quetta and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the port city. Nor is there an organised effort aimed at infiltrating these groups under cover through their communities in Karachi, as has been done in cities in the West. As such, Karachi police could do with a separate intelligence-gathering department geared towards this threat. In an ideal world it would work with police departments in other areas of the country where these militants travel from, although the ongoing failure to establish a national counterterrorism authority does not inspire hope of coordination. Check-posts, barriers and police presence may also have to be increased on Karachi’s streets to help translate this intelligence into action on the ground. Again, however, it will be of limited use unless policemen know what they are looking for.

Monday’s attack was a reminder that Islamist militant groups still have a foothold in Karachi and can organise and carry out attacks in the city. It was here that 9/11 facilitator and Al Qaeda operative Ramzih Binalsibh was captured in a shootout in 2002, and nine years later the threat has only expanded to include a host of militant groups with a pre-sence in Karachi. It is a sprawling city, one that is easy to enter and exit at will. Policing it successfully will require a much more vigorous effort.


ACTING in response to a petition calling for a permanent ban on the popular social networking website Facebook, the Lahore High Court on Monday asked the Ministry of Information Technology to block all websites “spreading religious hatred”. The petitioner sought the ban because the website was apparently hosting a competition of blasphemous caricatures. Facebook, YouTube and several other websites were temporarily blocked last year for similar reasons, causing consternation among many of Pakistan’s Internet users. Thankfully, the court said that Google and other search engines should not be blocked. While it is true that some sites may be indulging in objectionable activities and deliberately attacking religious sensitivities, we feel blocking websites is not the way to deal with the issue. It is neither ethical, in view of the tenets of freedom of information, nor effective. The best response would be to ignore offensive websites as bans of any sort only give controversial issues unnecessary publicity and set a precedent to justify future moves to curb the flow of information. Preventing access to entire websites, especially social networking ones, only prevents access to valuable communication tools. In fact, the courts would be advised not to entertain such petitions at all.

Meanwhile, is it even possible for the government to set up an authority that would monitor ‘objectionable activities’ on the Internet worldwide, as demanded by the petitioner? Besides being questionable, this could prove technically impossible. Before clamping down on offending websites, the relevant authorities should consider that citizens’ privacy and freedom of expression are at stake when the state begins to police the Internet. And once a precedent has been set, where does one draw the line? Offensive material on the Internet should not be used as an excuse for the government to control what information citizens can access.


THIS is a good time to take stock of how well-prepared the state is to hold elections, regardless of whether polls take place in 2013 as scheduled or snap polls are held earlier. Verification of electoral rolls is currently under way across the country and there is a demand from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to extend the Sept 30 deadline for the enrolment of voters by three months. The KP assembly passed a unanimous resolution stating this on Monday, as many eligible voters in the province had yet to register. This would be a sen-sible move, as verification has also been stalled in the flood-hit areas of Sindh and an extension of the deadline may also be needed in some areas of Karachi where verification has been delayed for various reasons. According to a report in this paper, in parts of Clifton, Defence and several ‘volatile’ neighbourhoods across the city, less than 10 per cent of the electoral rolls have been verified as teams have been turned away from apartment complexes and bungalows by security guards.

Perhaps the government needs to publicise the verification process through a proper nationwide media campaign with advertisements explaining the process and advising citizens about what steps to take in order to register themselves and verify their identities. The hours when the teams will be visiting homes must be defined. As many people are away at work during the week, perhaps the weekend should be utilised for making the campaign a success. And as pointed out by the Sindh election commissioner, appropriate security must be provided to the verification teams conducting the campaign in violence-hit areas of Karachi as well as in other parts of the country where access is a problem. Ultimately, citizens also need to make the effort to get themselves registered instead of simply complaining and criticising, especially if the wobbly foundations of democracy in this country are to be supported. Exercising the right to adult franchise is an essential component of building and strengthening a democra-tic order. This is especially true in countries like Pakistan where the democratic experiment has often been derailed.