KARACHI, July 9: The internally displaced people of Lyari, who had been forced to abandon their homes in the strife-torn area, have started returning only to find their dwellings looted, plundered and devastated by the gangsters, who fled the area ahead of the recently launched operation.

“They have only left a suction pump in the house. The rest of our belongings, including the fridge, television etc., are all gone,” Abdul Sattar, an elderly man, told Dawn.

Sattar, along with his family, had abandoned his house in Street No 2 of Eidu Lane about two-and-a-half months ago. “We could not even step out of our house due to the intense firing coming from all directions. At one stage we ran out of food,” he recalled.

Mr Sattar, who was not sure of his age, had moved into a rented house in Mowach Goth after being forced out of his Lyari house.

He returned to his house on Wednesday morning after hearing the news that the area had been ‘librated’ by the law enforcement personnel.

Sattar was not alone in complaining about plunder by the gangsters; the relatively younger Haji Liaquat also complained about a missing fridge, television, ceiling fans and other household articles from his Eidu Lane house.

However, the residents were reluctant to name the gangsters they felt were responsible for the pillage.

A visit to the strife-torn area showed that the gangsters had developed passages by carving out holes in the walls to enable quick escapes without being detected.

Even on Wednesday evening, several houses in the area still remained abandoned, the walls and roofs pockmarked with bullet holes. After visiting the area, one felt one had stepped into a war-torn patch of Iraq or Afghanistan.

This reporter entered the area from the Bhangi Para side and – moving through carved out holes – exited into Eidu Lane.

“They had developed the network of passages through houses by carving out holes from one house to another in the entire neighbourhood,” SP Lyari Raja Umar Khattab said.

“Without coming on to the road, they had the ability to travel in the entire neighbourhood,” he explained.

The law enforcement personnel have found a few AK-47 rifles and a sub-machine gun from the area and some suspects have been rounded up, but none of them are prominent. The respective leaders of the warring gangs – Rehman Dakait and Ghaffar Zikri, a lieutenant of Arshad Pappu – are still at large.

A few of the suspects have been cleared and released, said a police officer.

Though the areas of Eidu Lane, Bhangi Para, Ali Mohammad Mohalla and Tannery Road have been cleared of gangsters, residents are reluctant to return to their homes, afraid of what will happen after the police’s withdrawal and the lack of basic facilities in the area.

“There is no water, electricity or gas in Eidu Lane. How can people restart their lives?” resident Haji Liaquat asked.

A woman, who identified herself as Jameela, was busy cursing the criminals, careful not to name names.

“They have ruined our house. They (criminals) assured us that they would not harm the house. They forced us to run for our lives,” she recalled.

“The bullets were landing in our courtyard from all directions. How could we have survived here? We could not even go into our kitchen,” Jameela said.

A senior police officer didn’t have a satisfactory reply when he was asked how long the police and Rangers planned to stick around in Lyari.

What happens when the law enforcement personnel are withdrawn from the area remains to be seen.

Till Wednesday evening, no politician, even from the Pakistan People’s Party, which considers Lyari as its stronghold in Karachi, had bothered to visit the ‘liberated’ area. “Since the present government likes to announce packages, some sort of relief package to the displaced residents of Lyari would be in order so that they could repair their houses,” remarked an officer requesting anonymity.

“The people here at least deserve to get electricity, water and gas to make the neighbourhood liveable again,” Jameela said.

There are electric poles installed in Eidu Lane and Zikri Mohalla, but all the wires are ripped out. The presence of gas is evident from the fact that at several places, this reporter found gas leaking from the roadsides, but in most of the houses even the gas meters are missing.

With none of the high-profile gangsters in custody yet, lasting peace in Lyari seems a far cry.