Security experts of a foreign cricket board visit the stadium, hotels and the main artery of the city; the Shahra-e- Faisal—to review security. Based on the findings, their board regrets that the team cannot visit Pakistan because security arrangements have been found inadequate.

As the gaming economy loses billions, the stake-holders in the big business pour scorn on the security concerns expressed by the foreign team. Newspapers condemn the decision in their editorials with all kinds of patriotic notions. The international tournaments are, however, relocated to other countries.

For visitors from abroad, security defines Karachi. Special security briefings and advisories beware them of the perils of intra-city travel especially the yellow cabs which are driven by likely assassins. Daniel Pearl of the Wall Street Journal had hired one such cab and it proved to be his last ride. He never returned. Did we repeat the profile that entails every report appearing in the western press? Average 1000 cars are stolen and 6000 mobile phones are snatched a month.

Mumbai and Johannesburg may be more insecure than Karachi, but Pakistan`s port city has the distinction of being one of the most lawless, and therefore dangerous, places in the world. Crime reporters will tell you that half of the city is `run` by Rehman Dacoit and Co., while armed groups associated with a particular political camp take care of the city in the other half. One mobile joke making rounds has it that a PCO sign-board in the hell informs calls to Karachi are charged as local calls. Of late, the world is appalled by the savagery seen here. Karachi earned notoriety for being the city where people are burned alive. Youtube has at least three videos featuring the brutal incidents taking place here.

Notwithstanding their absolute vulnerability and corresponding caution, animals develop a feel-at-home bond with the habitat which makes them conveniently overlook the danger of the predators sneaking around. A country can be the habitat but a state cannot afford to be. The state is an institution that provides its subjects with paid security. Constitutions guarantee rights and the freedom that emanate from physical, national and social security. New violent trends being set in Karachi indicates the new lows of all sorts of security that the state can possibly provide.

Following a number of incidents of setting people on fire, the Society for Development and Human Rights commissioned a fact-finding. Released in August 2008, the SDHR report consists of the ocular account narrated by witnesses, the circumstantial accounts put forward by other actors, and legal and psycho-social perspective shared by leading lawyers, social scientists and human rights activists. It exposes the hidden truth behind the make-believe facade that is difficult to reconcile with for whosoever having a stake in Karachi.

We know for a fact that there is a political face of some of these incidents. Karachi saw people burning alive in the riots that followed former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto`s assassination. In a bid to block the reception of deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, more than 50 people were killed in a massacre that was declared as “public reaction” by the then president. In April 2007, six people were burnt alive in Tahir Plaza—the building that houses offices of the lawyers. The victims were believed to be lawyers.

The major incident that drew the world attention took place on May 14, 2008 when a group of incensed residents of the Ranchore Lines neighbourhood beat and burnt three robbers so badly that two died on the spot and another died at hospital. According to reports they were beaten by the people with “whatever they could lay their hands on”, including sticks and rods. In the end, oil was sprinkled on them and they were set alight. 

Another incident in the same month occurred in a mini bus near Five Star chungi. People caught hold of two robbers and burnt them alive. A police official in civies was severely beaten when he tried to intervene. 

Perceptions and optics speak volumes of how a city thinks of these incidents. For example, one person killed at a deserted place may warrant taking routine cognizance by the police. But a mass murder is not considered such a crime. If perceptions of the people and that of the police are any guide, it defies any chance of culpability laid down in procedure codes. Following every such occurrence, people settle with the inevitability of the evil act. Witnessing non-stop ethnic riots, massacres, gang-rapes, kidnappings and robberies, the city has stopped being traumatised.

Like all other cities marred by violence, Karachi too has its share of de-humanisation. Beneath the suppressed soul of the city, lies the lava that needs a trigger to erupt.

Pakistan is known as a security state, paradoxically; with little security to the life and liberty of its citizens. They know what their status and plight is in a security (read `police`) state. The rare scene of a policeman dragging the chief justice of the country by the hair and no one intervening leads the development of the perception on what is officially referred to `administration of justice`. Following absence of security is justice which is neither done nor seen being done. In Karachi, most people think that the extra-judicial killings of (alleged) criminals could be a viable solution to curb crimes.

According to Roman law, crime such as murder is non-compoundable. Simply put, the courts will not entertain any settlement between the parties even if a complainant in such a case forgives the accused after getting compensation. The underlying premise is that the crime of murder is a crime against state and the state cannot withdraw from prosecution of the perpetrators of any crime against it. Providing for out-of-court settlements, Qisas and Diyat provisions of the Penal Code have radically transformed the basic premise. Parties approach Jirgas to facilitate a patch up. And Jirgas are not something held only in forests of Katcha area or Pashtun and Baloch mountains. Parties patch up outside the court, inform the judge, who simply disposes off the case. Murder in Pakistan is no more a crime against state, it is a private crime which is tried by private courts whose judgments are endorsed by the country`s courts. This is the whole gamut of privatization of justice system. State has systematically receded its responsibilities in this area. Like other sectors, here too the message is clear. Hence the rise of do-it-yourself justice.

Seeing no supremacy of law and constitution in the country, people start taking cue from tribal laws, comments a criminologist interviewed by SDHR. They use exemplary ways in their brand of vigilante justice arguing that it would teach other criminals a lesson.

Having fallen victim to crime, people avoid reporting it to police. Visiting a police station may invite the wrath of criminal gangs. I know a doctor who was a witness in an accident case. He appeared before the court for sixteen hearings but his statement was not recorded. He stopped receiving summons, says Akhtar Hussain Syed, the former president of Sindh High Court Bar Association.

Lethargy; corruption; lack of initiative, commitment, and resources; and institutional incapacity are the known factors of institutional decline of the justice system. There could be various reasons for routine acquittals of accused in heinous cases ranging from flawed investigation to evidence insufficient to establish the offences beyond reasonable doubt. Former Chief justice of Sindh High Court, Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid reports that there has been no conviction in any of the gang-rape cases during the last five years. This is a pointer on what has devoured public trust in the justice system.

Akhtar Hussain Syed Advocate, however, comes up with a counter argument Hundreds of people are on death row in Pakistan. Has this discouraged people from not committing murders?

Whether it was led by political will or driven by the doctrine of necessity, Pakistan quietly signed the UN Covenant against Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishments (UNCAT) on April 17, 2008.

Sociologists suggest that the notion of a society being `civil` does not guarantee that it would be `civilised`. Society can be exploitative, jingoistic and in many cases supportive of inhumane values. That society generally prefers to live in impression of being self-righteous, upright and necessarily virtuous is evident from the demand it makes to uproot evils that pose threat to it. For example, media keeps on propelling the demand of the society for the drive against crime. This sort of public interest articulation is self-defeating if one takes the view that violent crime is the result of alienation caused by an exploitative civil society. With few exceptions, which are elusive in nature, the majority of the media reports of the incidents in which criminals were set alight suggest that the perpetrators were being lauded as brave citizens and the  act was justified on the pretext of inaction of police.

State of Nature theorists Hobbes, Locke and even Hegel had defined civil society as organised society over which the state rules. They held that political authority was at least hypothetically dispensable. They argued as if it was possible not to have a state. The SDHR report ends with a poem that indicates a vacuum. Poet Mustafa Arbab declares that being annoyed, our city has quietly deserted us. We are now living in a jungle. Fine, but environment-lovers may question the characteristics tacitly attributed to jungle.