KARACHI, Aug 27: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s demand for the army to be called in for restoration of peace in Karachi drew a strong reaction from the ruling parties and their allies both at the Centre and in Sindh.

While some parties described the call as undemocratic and even condemnable, the MQM’s former rival, the Awami National Party (ANP), supported its stand on the issue.

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) — major political rivals at the national level — seem to be on the same page as both of them ruled out the possibility of assigning the job of maintaining law and order in Karachi to the armed forces, at least at this stage.

Top leaderships of the two parties argued that the civilian law-enforcement agencies were fully capable of handling the situation and had the adequate resources to resolve the Karachi issue. What was needed, they believed, was a political will and a consensus among the parties concerned, to take appropriate action for bringing an end to bloodshed and violence.

The ANP response to its erstwhile rival’s call took political quarters by surprise.

“The demand to invite the army is in line with our longstanding stance that an operation cleanup under the army against criminal groups and mafias is needed to be carried out for a sustainable peace in the metropolis,” senior ANP leaders in Karachi said on Tuesday.

Senior PPP leader Taj Haider rejected the MQM demand saying: “The PPP can never support this demand. The army was called in to carry out an operation cleanup in Karachi in the 1990s but it was the PPP government that sent the troops back to the barracks. We should identify the shortcomings of the civilian forces and address them on our own rather shifting the responsibility to others. All political forces should sit together to find a solution to the problem and join hands to achieve the goal. At the same time, all government institutions, including the judiciary, should play their due role in restoring peace in that city.”

Mr Haider recalled that the August 2010 initiative by the PPP government which led to a written agreement among all political parties, and said that the signatories had resolved not to harbour criminal elements. He said hundreds of crime and terrorism suspects were arrested over the past five years but hardly any of them was convicted.

“At a time when the armed forces are already engaged in defending the country amid heightened tension on the borders, it is not advisable to assign them the responsibility of quelling violence in cities,” argued Mr Haider.

Salim Zia of the PML-N condemned the MQM demand and wondered that it came from a party which had always claimed to have been a victim of military operation.

He blamed the unbridled violence in Karachi on the Sindh government’s failure and said his party believed that only political will to restore peace in Karachi was needed. “This requires harsh decisions and a zero-tolerance policy towards criminals and terrorists.”

When asked about the PML-N’s dialogue with MQM on peace in Karachi in the backdrop of a recent thaw in their relations on the eve of presidential election, Mr Zia denied any such talks to have taken place.

“That (the presidential election) was purely a political matter and the MQM supported us unconditionally. Peace in Karachi is totally a different subject, which we have not yet taken up with any political party on our own,” he explained.

ANP Sindh chief Senator Shahi Syed welcoming the MQM demand for handing over Karachi to the army, said that instead of opposing the idea, the PPP should come out with a convincing alternative. “Karachi, once city of lights is now under the rule of terrorists. The government must tell its citizens how will it regain control over it and restore peace,” Shahi Syed said in a statement issued from the ANP office, the Bacha Khan Markaz, on Tuesday.

“We have been demanding for over four years that the city should be handed over to the army for a brief period to let it carry out an operation like it did in Swat and Malakand to uproot terrorists’ safe havens and seize illegal weapons,” he recalled.

He said that the ANP in principle opposed the role of army in politics, but it was convinced that the situation in Karachi where the police and Rangers appeared to have failed to contain violence warrants military intervention.

Many operations conducted by the law-enforcement agencies in Manghopir and Lyari had failed to establish writ of the government, he observed.

The Jamaat-i-Islami also criticised the MQM demand, saying that the ongoing violence in the city remained at its peak over the years the MQM had been in power. Karachi JI chief Mohammad Hussain Mahenti described the call for an army takeover of Karachi as undemocratic, and termed the MQM move unethical.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, he said: “It is so unfortunate that the MQM despite remaining in power for a long period did not succeed in eliminating the target killing, extortion and kidnapping for ransom in Karachi.”