Political groups to blame for Karachi unrest: HRCP
Rehan Siddiqui
2 August 2011
KARACHI Eleven more people including a policeman were killed and more than a dozen others injured on Monday in Karachi after a Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) report blamed powerful political groups for breakdown of law and order in the city.
[FONT=&]Orangi Town became the latest battleground on Monday when two armed groups exchanged fire which continued intermittently throughout the day leaving at least three people dead and several injured.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]The HRCP in its report after completing a fact-finding mission in Karachi to ascertain the causes of the latest wave of violence in the city said that the city is in the grip of a multi-sided wave of insecurity-driven political, ethnic and sectarian polarisation that has greatly undermined its tradition of tolerance and good-neighbourliness.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Though the land-grabbers and mafias have tried to exploit the breakdown of law and order, they do not appear to be the main directors of the violence; that distinction belongs to more powerful political groups and it is they who hold the key to peace, the report said.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]The report said that the problems inherent in Karachis urban growth and expansion, being an industrial and commercial mega city, have not been tackled properly by the present or the previous governments.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Problems of unemployment, housing, transport, education, health, supply of water, electricity and gas need to be sorted out with the help of civil societys pool of talent and knowledge, the report added.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]The report also pointed out that nearly all political parties agree that it was necessary for all to respect each others position and desist from attempts of capture political mileage through violence.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]While conducting the survey the HRCP received complaints against law enforcement agencies ranging from dereliction of duty, abandonment of posts, long delays in responding to distress calls to downright collusion with criminals.
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