WAS the goal to grab headlines? Or simply to shift responsibility? It was the classic Pakistani conspiracy theory of blaming those mysterious 'foreign hands', but coming from a senior government official in charge of domestic security, Interior Minister Rehman Malik's statement on Sunday only trivialised the horror Karachi has been through over the last two weeks. Israeli weapons have been found in the port city, Mr Rehman claimed, suggesting that this meant a foreign element was behind Karachi's unrest. Without more direct linkages between the city's violence and external powers, this claim defies logic. The black market in weapons is international and is not necessarily direct; arms smugglers and markets serve as clearing houses for weapons from multiple countries. In order to make the claim credible, more evidence would have to be made public. Who were these weapons recovered from? What other links did these people have to any foreign power? In an earlier statement, the interior minister had also suggested that Taliban elements were involved in the clashes when he claimed they were spotted in the Kati Pahari area. It remains unclear how those labelled Taliban were identified as such. Was it established that they had ties to the TTP or TTP-linked groups? Or were they simply described thus because of the language they speak or their towns of origin?

In the absence of answers to such questions, Mr Malik's statements only come across as attempts to gloss over the complexities of Karachi's political and ethnic violence by blaming elements external to the city itself. The fact is that Karachi's conflicts are homegrown and deeply intertwined with local politics. As the party in power in Sindh, the PPP must take responsibility for its failure to stop the violence before it spiralled out of control. In fact, it was the reaction to a senior PPP official's statements that led to another stage of violence that erupted last week. To blame external powers in such a scenario only diminishes the extent of Karachi's problems and creates the impression that this government does not recognise its own responsibility to protect its citizens.