It is 8 pm and Lyari is pitch black because the gangsters
have blown up all the PMTs by firing at the electricity poles. There is an
eerie silence as the policemen wait in nervous anticipation of the next
onslaught by the gangsters and whisper about their next moves.
The road between Cheel Chowk and Ghas Mandi Chowk is full of
nearly 1,500 policemen, mobiles, armoured personnel carriers (APCs), two APC
tanks, ambulances and the media.
At a time, around 100 to 150 policemen venture inside the
narrow gulleys of Kalakot. With them are slim young men in trousers, t-shirts
and scarves wrapped around their faces. They go inside with the policemen to
help them navigate the labyrinth of narrow lanes while some sit outside and
keep an eye on whoever comes out of the cordoned off area. The
residents have been leaving the area by droves because there is no water, food,
or electricity and they have been imprisoned in their homes.
Some say that they are Arshad Pappu’s men while others say
that they are from the Kutchi Rabita Committee, a rival of the Peoples Amn
Committee.
The gangsters and law enforcement
personnel, including Anti-Extremist Cell, Crime Investigation Department,
Frontier Constabulary, Rapid Response Force and Special Protection Group have been
fighting a pitched battle. They have been attacked by eight rockets, 20 hand
grenades and Awans – a clever invention of the Lyari gangsters. An Awan is a
combination of a grenade and a rocket launcher. In the midst of all this chaos,
the Rangers are conspicuous by their absence.
The gangsters have been able to push the forces back towards
Cheel Chowk and reclaim Nawa Lane and Afshani Gali, the areas which the police
had claimed on Saturday to have cleared of the gangsters.
The APC tanks which the police had especially called for the
operation do not seem to be helping as well. They keep breaking down, the
policemen have difficulty in driving them since they are not used to it and
they are not exactly bulletproof. A policeman was even shot and injured while
sitting inside one of these APC tanks. Most importantly, these tanks are too
big for the narrow lanes of Lyari.
According to one policeman who lives in the area and is also
a part of the operation, there are three or four gangsters in each lane and
about five more at the pickets set up at corners for back up. At first, the
police and gangster fight a verbal battle, when the policemen go inside and
come face to face with the gangsters, as both shout profanities at each other.
More often than not, as has been the case, policemen come back without
achieving anything. “Even the APCs can’t enter the narrow lanes. We can
only target the gangsters when we have some sort of cover,” he says. “They have
light machine guns and G3 rifles and there are snipers inside. They first shoot
at our vehicles then corner us.”
The injured men are put in ambulances and then driven to
hospitals. But interestingly, none of the gangsters who were killed or injured
have come out of the area which leads the police to suspect that the gangsters
have also stocked up on medicines and first aid with the weapons.
But only Chhipa ambulances are allowed inside because the
security forces believe that the Edhi ambulances, many of whose drivers are
Baloch, might be helping the gangsters.
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