KARACHI, May 24: As firing stopped for a while in Lyari’s Kalri area on Friday, women scurried outside to look for their sons and brothers arrested on suspicion by the Rangers. Though the Rangers personnel released one person, there were many others held on suspicion as the violence continued to escalate. In between the ongoing feud between two rival groups in Kalri, Agra Taj Colony and Nayabad, Lyariites tried to make sense of the violence that has left 12 people dead and scores of others wounded over the past few days.

There was a temporary lull in firing due to Friday prayers during which people hurriedly went about buying food items for their home. At the same time, many in the area felt angry over being confined to their homes for three days without electricity and food.

While a number of armoured personnel carriers of Rangers were parked around Kalri, people in the neighbourhood claimed that there was no use having the law-enforcers around.

A woman named Khan Bibi said: “They (law-enforcers) have done nothing, except for arresting our children on suspicion. I can still hear the exchange of fire, what are they doing to stop them?”

Others complained of lack of electricity after they said a pole-mounted transformer was blown up by one of the groups.

While intense firing and power shortage forced many people out of their homes, the fear of being caught in the crossfire kept others indoors.

It all started on May 19 when a single gunshot killed a Kutchhi man in Kalri, near Juna Masjid, a predominantly Kutchhi neighbourhood.

Since that time on, both the Kutchhi Rabita Committee and men belonging to Lyari’s notorious gangs have been involved in tit-for-tat shootouts that have claimed several many lives over the past six days.

There were many versions of the shootouts as it depended on which side one was speaking to. Those living near Juna Masjid blamed outlawed People’s Amn Committee while those living on the opposite end of the mosque, most of them being Baloch, accused the KRC of “instigating a shootout.”

Ghulam Marri, a resident of Agra Taj Colony and a banker by profession, said that nobody knew who started the shooting though so far only “pedestrians and residents” had been killed in the crossfire that started on May 19.

A spokesperson for the KRC, Daud Kutchhi, enumerated three reasons for the ongoing wave of violence in Lyari. He called it a post-poll violence, explaining that it was basically revenge over the loss of the Kutchhi vote bank in several Kutchhi-dominated areas.

“Secondly, we opposed the nomination of gangsters for PPP seats in Lyari. For that reason, we nominated independent candidates, Rafiq Kutchhi from NA-248 and Haji Adam Kutchhi from PS-108, which didn’t go down well with the PAC,” he alleged.

The third reason he highlighted pertained to the ongoing turf war between different groups and a rise in extortion in the city. The KRC spokesperson said they had been resisting the demands for extortion and that was why they were made to suffer.

The KRC was established in 2011 to counter the dominance of the People’s Amn Committee, now banned. Known for their knack for business and trade, the Kutchhi community’s involvement in incidents of violence and a sudden formation of the KRC gave rise to speculation that the community is backed by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a claim that both the MQM and the KRC forcefully deny.

However, Vice President of the Pakistan Peoples Party in Karachi Habib Hassan did not call it post-poll violence, explaining that the killings started 15 days before the elections and continued during the elections as well. He cited a number of incidents of violence, including the killing of a man named Niaz and a Peoples Student Federation member, Nomi Butt, in this regard. “The shooting incident on May 19 stoked an already sensitive situation, giving armed groups a reason to start fighting,” he added.

In order to bring about a ceasefire to the continuing violence in Lyari, a group of people from both the Kutchhi and Baloch community on Friday met deputy commissioner of district south Mustafa Jamal Qazi, said the PPP leader said. Mr Hassan added that the DC constituted a committee comprising officials of police, Rangers, three representatives of the Kutchhi side and the Baloch side each, also including the recently elected MPAs, Saniya Naz and Jawed Nagori.

As for the violence, Mr Hassan had his reservations over the spike in firing incidents from particular areas. “I fail to understand why violence was reported from sparsely Kutchhi populated areas, like Agra Taj Colony, and not from the densely populated ones, for instance Chakiwara and Kumharwara?”

Nevertheless, he said, the main objective for the committee was to have a ceasefire to see how things move on from there.

However, PAC media cell chief Akram Baloch termed the entire episode of violence a ‘political issue’. Insisting that there was no ethnic strife in Lyari, he said that a certain political party could not digest the fact that the people of Lyari chose PPP nominated candidates as MNA and MPAs.

Speaking about the day the violence started, Mr Baloch said that some PAC men informed them about a group of men, with automatic weapons, walking from the Juna Masjid towards a Baloch-populated street in Kalri. Sensing danger, the men opened fire resulting in casualties on both sides, he added.

“I have grown up around Kutchhis and can tell you for sure that they don’t know how to carry a gun, let alone how to operate one. The Kutchhis are basically peaceful people and this gang warfare is a facade to hide political motives of a certain political party,” Mr Baloch said.

He added that during the meeting with the DC, both Kutchhis and Baloch admitted that there was no bad blood between the two communities.

“Our only issue is pertaining to a number of offices of a political party in parts of Agra Taj Colony, which is the root cause of all conflict. Apart from that, we have no issues with anyone.”

Meanwhile, people on both sides of Juna Masjid in Kalri, blamed the armed groups for inciting hatred among communities. A resident, Saleh Mohammad Kutchhi, said that his younger sister was married to a Baloch in another area, as they had been neighbours for decades. “Our fight is with the armed groups and not with the Baloch in the area,” he added.

A shopkeeper, Haji Hassan Ali Kutchhi, said that if people visited this area after midnight, they would find people from the neighbourhood sitting together. “We don’t need this trouble in our neighbourhood,” he said.