A challenging read

Besides the gruesome photographs adorning its front page, Janbaz has built its reputation around its riotous headlines. Where else would you find pieces of ‘news’ such as “Baba Ladla urf Ganja group auraton ke libaas mein burqe pehen kar grenade phektaa hai” (The gang of Baba Ladla, alias the gang of the bald, dresses as women and wears the burqa to throw grenades) (2 October 2015), or “Liaquatabad daak-khana: rickshaw pe firing. Driver golion se chalni ho gaya” (A rickshaw targeted at the Liaquatabad Post Office: its driver riddled with bullets) (2 March 2015)? Until recently, part of the ‘masala’ spicing up its front page was provided by the gangsters themselves. Gang leaders and their ‘commanders’ sent incendiary quotes to the paper via SMS or Whatsapp, in which they challenged or threatened their rivals. On November 14, 2014, for instance, a leading ‘commander’ of Uzair Baloch’s faction, Shiraz ‘Comrade’, lobbed a challenge at his rival, senior PPP worker and former UC nazim, Rauf Baloch: “Rauf Baloch teri ulti ginti shuru ho gai. Jan bachani hai, Lyari se bhag ja. Tum India ki sazish ke tehet Lyari mein Balochon ko qatl karane ae ho. Rauf Baloch tum jitna marzi bhaag lo main tumhen marunga” (Rauf Baloch, the end of your life is near. If you want to save your own life, pack your things and leave! You came to Lyari via an Indian conspiracy to kill the Baloch. Rauf Baloch, you can run as much as you want, but I will kill you.)

The police have often accused the newspaper of fuelling the conflicts between local gangs. A police officer at Kalakot police station termed it a ‘fasadi’ (incendiary) newspaper and claimed that, “They used to call up some gang commanders and provoke them in order to record statements against their rivals. Then they would contact rival commanders for a retaliatory statement. After the publication of such statements, we would often witness armed clashes between members of each faction in the streets of Lyari”.

But the police themselves were also a party to these press wars, with the boundary between criminals and the state becoming increasingly blurred. This mimesis culminated in January 2015, when the SHO of Kalakot, Haq Nawaz ‘Commando’, alias ‘Dabang’, exchanged a series of ‘challenges’ with Shiraz Comrade. The tussle started with the following statement from Haq Nawaz: “SHO Baghdadi Haq Nawaz Commando ka Shiraz Comrade ko challenge: Jitni marzi dasti bam hamle kar le, tera anjam ibratnak karunga. / Shiraz Comrade tu ‘hijra, khusra’ hai. Main mard hun. Teri laash ko pure elaqe ghaseetunga” (SHO Baghdadi Haq Nawaz Commando’s challenge to Shiraz Comrade: No matter how many homemade bombs you throw at me, I will ensure you meet a dreadful end. / Shiraz Comrade, you are a eunuch. I am a man. I will drag your body all over the neighborhood.) To which Shiraz Comrade replied: “Auraton ki tarah sar par dupatta aurhkar gharibon ko darane wale jali commando apni harkaton se baaz a jao, varna tera janazah uthane wala bhi koi nahin milega.” (You fake commando terrorizing the poor and wearing a scarf on your head like a woman, mend your ways or there’ll be no one to carry your bier at your funeral). Those exchanges went on for several days, with each protagonist questioning the manhood of his rival and threatening to “drag his body across the neighborhood”. While pointing at the mirroring effects between some police officers and their criminal ‘other’, these theatrics bore testimony to the banalisation of extra-judicial violence in Lyari and Karachi at large. (Laurent Gayer)