WITHIN the last week, President Asif Ali Zardari has held at least two meetings on the law and order situation in Karachi. But lost in all his directives about creating law-enforcement task forces, securing public rallies and carrying out immediate arrests is the bigger picture. While the president has been in the port city, a senior police officer who had been part of the mid-1990s operation in Karachi was shot dead, traders went on strike to protest the abduction of two colleagues and a grenade attack on a restaurant was linked to extortion demands. These are, of course, just three of dozens of incidents that have taken place during Karachi’s latest bout of violence. But they are indicative of the nexus between crime and ethnicity-based politics that has taken hold in the city, breaking which requires much more than measures to implement the law alone.

It is time the city’s leaders and managers stopped trying to use public statements about fighting crime to fool the people of Karachi, who know well what is really at stake: politics. Law enforcement is critical, but in this city — more than anywhere else — it does not operate in a vacuum. The fact is that the targeted killings, extortion and kidnappings that have become routine are used by multiple political parties to establish bases of power, raise funds and seek revenge. What this also means is that reactive steps and short-term crime-fighting measures can no longer solve the ongoing problem that Karachi violence and crime have become. For one, even-handed law enforcement is impossible in a city where ethnic and political rivalries run deep, including in the police force. Second, crime cannot be eliminated until political parties come to a genuine realisation of both their responsibilities and their interests. This would mean agreeing that they owe security to the people of Karachi, for the majority of whom the city has become all but unliveable, and that peace here is in their own long-term interests.

Their approach so far is hardly encouraging. When parties do come together, it is usually to put an end to violence that threatens to spin out of control. Although extortion has become a permanent feature of life in Karachi, targeted killings come to a decisive halt once too many people have died, clearly indicating that Karachi politicians are capable of deal-making — though only of the short-term variety. This is a city where violence is carefully managed. Without a serious change of heart on the part of those in power, it is unlikely to become safer in any meaningful way.