JUST as it seemed that Karachi may be enjoying a rare interlude of comparative calm, the bodies of five young men shot execution-style were found on Friday in Pak Colony. It appears the murders were part of the vicious gang war raging in neighbouring Lyari. For most Karachi residents, these killings will be seen as part of the perceived notoriety of the area.

The relative peace in the rest of the city is attributed to the ongoing operation by the Rangers and police. But what is the nature of this ‘peace’ and how durable is it? The MQM claims to have been by far the most affected by the operation.

“Our understanding was that this was going to be an intelligence-oriented, targeted operation against criminals, mafias, lawbreakers,” says MQM leader Haider Abbas Rizvi. “Instead, hundreds of our activists have been arrested.”

Nevertheless, the party’s reaction on the street has been uncharacteristically muted. There have been no strike calls, no demonstrations. In fact, it is difficult to even contact the ‘sector in-charges’ of the party who seem to have been instructed to lie low.

Being out of power in both Islamabad and the Sindh government and the pressure being exerted on Altaf Hussain in London in connection with the Metropolitan Police investigations appears to be major factors in the party’s restraint.

According to one analyst, “Had Mr Hussain allowed the MQM to fight back, this operation would have been over in two days because the city would have come to a halt.”

Nevertheless, the party’s formidable organisational structure is very much intact and will be seen to assert itself on the occasion of the local government polls. The ongoing operation seems to have also forced the first and second tier leadership of other groups, including MQM-Haqiqi and Peoples Amn Committee, whose many off-shoots are presently engaged in internecine warfare, to keep a low profile for now.

On the face of it, the operation offers an opportunity for parties sidelined by the MQM juggernaut to once again create political space for themselves in the city. However, neither the PPP nor the Awami National Party (ANP) is in a position to take advantage of the situation. The ANP has been decimated by a relentless campaign of murder and intimidation by Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) elements in Karachi’s Pashtun-majority areas, from which the ANP draws its strength.

There remain no ANP offices openly functioning in the city, and party office-bearers are operating out of their homes.

Such is the fear within the ANP cadres in Karachi that the party is reportedly facing difficulty in finding candidates for the local bodies polls. According to ANP’s provincial general secretary Bashir Jan, the operation does not go far enough. “Until the intelligence agencies put an end to their good Taliban/bad Taliban policy, nothing will change,” he says. Had the security operation targeted TTP elements as thoroughly, space for the ANP would have opened up in the areas from where it has been driven out.

Moreover, sectarian killings still continue, showing that intelligence-led raids and arrests have not significantly hampered extremist groups such as Laskar-e-Jhangvi and Jundullah and instead have allowed them to retain their foothold.

The operation has also exposed the organisational bankruptcy of the PPP. Until a few years ago, it could hold its own against the MQM in the city, but in view of the party’s financial interests it has increasingly ceded ground to its traditional political rival in Sindh’s urban areas. Perhaps the one party that could benefit from the existing conditions is the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI). It used to go head to head with the PPP in Karachi’s lower class, mixed ethnic neighbourhoods until it was rendered irrelevant by the MQM back in the ’90s.

The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, which did surprisingly well in the last general elections, is still not organised enough to fill the vacuum created by the current situation. Thus, most of the gains of the operation may well be merely superficial.

The religious militants are still able to strike at will; some of the ethnic groups may be lying low, but their militant wings remain intact and fully armed, and can resurface anytime. For the real gains, two conditions need to be met: an across-the-board, even-handed approach by the law enforcement agencies, and political parties with a strong commitment to democratic norms at their core prepared to take up the gauntlet.