SECURITY and law and order situation both in Karachi and Balochistan is deteriorating with the passage of every day with no signs of light at the end of the dark tunnel. Karachi is on fire and innocent souls are losing their lives in mysterious target killings that are going on unchecked for years while severity of the Balochistan situation can be judged by the remarks made by Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary who warned on Wednesday that emergency and martial law would become unavoidable if the Government continued to show apathy towards the province.In this backdrop, people of Pakistan expected of the Government to come out with a comprehensive and urgent response to address the challenge but the decision of the Federal Cabinet to resort to the hackneyed and worthless option of forming two committees to look into the situation in Karachi and Balochistan shows how serious our rulers are to tackle these grave problems that worry each and every Pakistani. In the first place, everyone knows that committees and commissions are formed just to deflect attention of the people and buy some more time.
Causes of the problem in Balochistan and Karachi are fully known and a number of special bodies were established in the past including the parliamentary ones that gave their recommendations but the real problem is that of implementation, which has always remained a big question mark. Again, the ministers assigned the task of identifying causes and come out with recommendations were already members of the cabinet and could have contributed towards solution if they had the necessary capacity and vision to do so.
Then, how the ministers who have miserably failed to resolve problems that fall within the domain of their ministries can be expected to work wonder in the framework of the two committee formed for the purpose. In Balochistan, the Government itself has repeatedly asserted that some foreign forces are trying to exploit the situation but so far no counter-strategy is in sight to foil designs of these elements. In Karachi and Sindh, lists of hard-core criminals and patharidars were compiled on so many occasions but they are still roaming freely and playing with the lives of the people. It is better that instead of resorting to eye-wash tactics, the Government leaders should rush to Karachi and Quetta, take all stakeholders on board and initiate genuine measures to resolve these problems.
