KARACHI: Within a minute after a text message circulated in Lyari’s Singhu Lane asking people to close shops and schools or “else we would not be responsible for what happens”, there was chaos with shopkeepers, transporters and school administration quickly trying to get out of the way of whatever that was about to happen.

They did not want to take chances as just a few days back, on the occasion of Baloch Culture Day, they were witness to an ‘Aiwan Bomb’ attack targeting an empty plot in Singhu Lane killing two and injuring dozens. An ‘Aiwan Bomb’ is similar to a hand grenade in terms of its impact and is attached to the base of a Kalashnikov, according to a resident.

A local leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party was quickly informed and asked to speak to the group. When he inquired, nobody from the group took responsibility for sending the text messages. “But there are shops in Chakiwara and adjoining Rexar Lane that decided to remain close for the day,” he said, adding after a pause, “we have been left to die here.”

Sitting inside the roadside school, which had to be quickly shut down after an announcement was made from a nearby mosque in Shah Baig Lane, the party representative requesting anonymity said that at the moment, “the gangs on both sides are leaderless. So basically we are at the whims and mercy of local goons. They can do as they please, there’s nobody to stop them.”

Over the past one month, the fight between the gangs in Lyari has taken the lives of around 15 people, people from the area told Dawn. “A day ago, a man along with his wife was carrying his two-year-old child on his shoulders when a fight broke out in Singhu Lane,” the party representative said, “the man and his wife got wounded, but the child died on the spot. There are similar stories in every household.”

On the Baloch Culture Day, observed last Sunday, three children got injured, while multiple cases of injuries were reported from different neighbourhoods in the following days. The celebration, which was already hampered by the attack, was attended by a mere 500 people. The PPP leader said that as a result of the ongoing fight “70 per cent of the residents from the area have moved to safe places.” The areas include Malir, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Mowachh Goth and Musharraf Colony.

Speaking to Dawn over the phone on the condition of anonymity, another Lyari resident said that as a teacher it was difficult to see his students jumping from their seats at every noise coming from outside. He said: “There’s a lot of pent-up anger among the people which if let loose would embarrass a lot of political representatives who call this area their own.”

For the past one week, apart from moving houses, families have been asking their relatives living on either side of the “border” — that is, the Lyari Post Office — to move to a safer place. “Recently, a man named Mohammad Jabbar Baloch was killed in Dhobi Ghat by a gang member on suspicion of being a Rangers informant,” the local leader said, adding that relatives on both sides of the violence-ridden zones were shifting to either different areas across the city or moving to a safer neighbourhood for the time being. The infighting between the gangs that started in August last year has only intensified over the months. The banned People’s Amn Committee’s Uzair Baloch, who just a few weeks ago had been in Muscat, was seen smiling in a photograph with another PAC member Habib Jan Baloch in London. The picture of the two recently appeared in a local Urdu-language newspaper from Lyari that is usually skimmed through for information on gang fights.

His opponents are also without a leader at the moment. Another gang member, Ghaffar Zikri who formed a splinter group with Noor Mohammad alias Baba Ladla, is said to be in the Sakaran area of Hub, while Ladla himself is reported to be in Khuzdar, Balochistan.

PPP lawmaker Saniya Naz, who won a seat in the general elections last year, is considered by many as “inexperienced, lacking the foresight to control the situation”, while her colleague, MPA Jawed Nagori, is said to have “lost his political credibility” soon after the elections, according to senior political activists who did not want to be named.

Amid the intensifying violence, the residents are left behind to handle the rise in extortion demands and robberies. Residents said that earlier when similar demands were made by groups, a few people did get respite by speaking to the head of a gang member or Lala. “Who can control them now? Both groups claim their loyalty to the PPP,” said another resident when asked about the situation in Lyari. “They were earlier answerable to a few elders, but there’s no one left here now. It’s just us and them.”

Some of the party workers who wanted to ‘patch things up’ between the two fighting groups, eventually decided to wait till the end of the ongoing operation in Karachi. “We can’t gather them and then wait for a raid to happen there. We’ve left that be for the time being,” the PPP leader said.

At the same time, area people said that for the past few weeks, the ‘command and control’ of Lyari had been passed on to other members in the absence of their leaders.

Gulistan Colony, Shah Baig Lane (Baghdadi) and Niazi Chowk in Daryabad are controlled by Uzair Baloch’s men, Faisal Pathan, Shiraz Comrade, and Shakeel Badshah Khan. Areas such as the four adjoining lanes near Lyari General Hospital — Dhobi Ghat, Phool Patti Lane, Ali Mohammad Mohalla and Dubai Chowk — are manned by Baba Ladla’s gang members, Asif Niazi, his brother Zahid Ladla, Ghaffar Zikri’s brother Shiraz Zikri looked over by other members from Ladla’s home in Dubai Chowk.

Violence usually erupts from the Football House adjacent to the Lyari Post Office — the two buildings that are considered a border between the two groups.

Caught in between the fights are area residents or those who have to go out to earn a livelihood. Just a day ago, a Chhipa ambulance driver was killed in Chakiwara as a stray bullet hit him, said a resident who was a witness to the incident.

As most of the residents agreed to speak over the phone only, one of them wanted that the authorities be requested to do something about them. “We’re as good as dead,” he said angrily, “I can’t say anything against these people even inside my home. Our children are dying, our women are depressed. What should I tell you what’s happening to us,” he said in a flustered tone.