KARACHI: A large number of people left their homes in violence-hit Lyari on Thursday with one group calling the migration a ‘desperate measure’ by community people to save their lives and the other describing it as a ‘political move’ after the recent thaw in relations between the two parties representing as many different communities of the city’s oldest neighbourhood.

Leaders of the Kutchhi community said that some eight buses and other vehicles carrying nearly 1,000 people, including women and children, left for Badin district where they would live in camps, schools and an abandoned place close to a shrine where dozens of such families were already living.

“In this phase 300 families have decided to migrate from Lyari to Badin,” said Saleh Muhammad Kutchhi. “These families are residents of the Rahmanabad, Mandra Mohallah, Hangorabad, Al-Falah Road and Baboo Hotel areas. They decided to take this initiative only after the government and political parties failed to restore peace to Lyari.”

The internally displaced persons of Lyari living in parts of Thatta district are facing tremendous hardship as most of them stay in the open, in school courtyards or homes of their relatives. Mostly women and children, these IDPs have been forced by violence and gang warfare in Lyari to take shelter elsewhere, leaving behind their homes and properties.

The villages which have received these desperate people include Hashim Mandhro near Bhambhore, Dhabeji, Gharo, Pir Patho, Khore Waah, Achar Rahemo, Muhammamd Ali Mandhro, Abdullah Mandhro and Ismail Mandhro. The Sindh government appears ‘well aware’ of the situation and the recent trend which they call alarming. However, the authorities claim to be making a ‘quick move’ to bring the Lyari IDPs back home, saying that after the recent intervention by the government that led to the formation of a committee comprising leaders of the Kutchhi and Baloch communities a sustainable peace is no longer a promise for the strife-hit town.

“We are making moves and have also made contacts to bring Kutchhi people back to their homes in Lyari,” said Sindh information minister Sharjeel Inam Memon. “We know that they made this move out of fear. But we are hopeful that they would come back, and meanwhile, we have also issued directives to the district administrations of Badin and Thatta to extend every possible help to these IDPs.”

However, the ground realities are very much different from the claims of the Sindh government. Saleh Muhammad Kutchhi said the IDP families were living under the open sky in Badin and Thatta districts where most of them refused to accept cooked food reportedly sent to them by the Sindh chief minister saying that they did not need food but peace in their ancestral localities in Karachi.

But Zafar Baloch, a Baloch member of the recently set-up committee, wondered over the reasons for the Kutchhi families’ migration after signs of peace had started emerging in the streets of Lyari and other parts of old city areas.“I’m unable to understand the reason behind the recent shifting,” he said. “For the past three days there have been encouraging signs of peace in Lyari areas and when there is a consensus committee in place looking after the Lyari law and order affairs under the DC-South almost daily, I wonder why these people are leaving their own homes. I think innocent people, including women and children, are being used to make this into a political issue and score political points.”