As we peer through our windows, we see an atrocious view of our city, drowning in its iniquity.

The ongoing violence and turmoil in Karachi has long consumed the city into a quagmire, and it continues to recede from us as we nonchalantly just stand there while the death toll rises. Much to our dismay, death has become a ubiquitous reality, where inhumane acts against innocent lives have become the norm of the society. Surviving an ordinary day means that we owe gratitude to terrorists for sparing our lives so we may rejoice in the 'presented' moment until it’s permanently taken away.

It’s infuriating how these incessant attacks, primarily target killings, seem to have no end. Three lawyers belonging to a Shia community were killed near Pakistan Chowk on 25 January; two people, including a woman, were killed and three injured in an armed attack on a mobile phone franchise in Nazimabad on 31 January; a grenade attack in Lyari killed two and injured five others on 7 February, and the list continues. The families of the deceased are left helpless fighting for justice in an unjust society.

If we visit the desolated streets of Karachi, which have recently been subject to a fresh wave of victimisation, we will inevitably come across the unfortunate whose family or friends were among the dead, and as much as we try to hear their distressful cry, we cannot compensate for their loss, and we are left paralysed to do anything to mitigate their pain.

Meanwhile, local political disputes flourish at global levels, resulting in innocent civilian deaths as the ruling parties, in retaliation against each other, commit deliberate destruction to ensure their reign over the city, and we cannot voice against these brutalities for fear of being one of the slain.

Street crimes are not lagging behind in the race either. Almost all of us have at one point or another heard of someone getting mugged at gunpoint. Sadly, it has become a convenient crime, and requires little effort to evoke fear in an already terrified people.

Furthermore, there have been human rights violations in Karachi repeatedly and we can witness them in the sectarian killings when a suicide bomber attacks the Shia procession during Ashura, or when the Ahmadi community is targeted. Nevertheless, our leaders choose to be ignorant when it comes to minority groups, and we are forced to weaken our links with our own brothers because if we dare to speak for ethnic rights, we might be blamed for blasphemy.

A fallacy has been quietly knitted in our society and sewn into our standardised system by our leaders, amending the laws to maintain their privileged position against the disadvantaged. What power and wealth uphold can never be revoked or criminalised, may it be as gruesome in any regard.

Who is to question the criminal justice system when the criminal justice system lies in the hands of the criminals who have both power and wealth? Who is then responsible for the mayhem caused in the country, when the mayhem is caused by the very own individuals who took vows for its prosperity? Who can then protect the common man from the atrocities inflicted upon him when those atrocities are directed by our legal guardians?

In this era of discontentment, it is a struggle to maintain a just society, where everyone can be treated equally; where everyone has a say; where everyone is classified as a human and their lives considered priceless.

We need to set aside our differences, unite under one platform and reform our mindsets. It is this very reform that will be our uprising to change.

You cannot transcend towards prosperity until you overcome ethnic barriers; it is time to step out of the fabricated society that we live in, to empathise and understand the plight of millions who await an end to Karachi violence.