KARACHI - The leaders of different political parties have opposed the idea of former army chief Pervez Musharraf, who suggested to appoint military general as martial law administrator to launch operation against criminals as well as to cleanse city of illegal weapons.
“The military should not come in the front and the Rangers under an Army General act to cleanse the City from weapons,” former military ruler said. The Supreme Court and the government should extend full support to the military, he added. Musharraf said that an unbiased operation was necessary to deweaponise Karachi and the political parties should remain impartial during the difficult task of freeing the City from weapons.
He said that he did not raised allegation against any party but he was referring towards the extremists elements promoting religious hatred and terrorism in the city.
“Karachi is the backbone of Pakistan’s economy and any loss to this City proved detrimental to entire industrial and trade activities,” he cautioned. Musharraf said that during his tenure, Karachi was the city of lights. However, the poor governance of the present rulers and their ill-conceived policies as well as inability to surmount challenges has shattered peace in the City, he added.
All the parties were on the same page of across the board severe action against the criminals. Former president and army chief Pervez Musharraf recently floated his suggestion by imposing imposition of martial law.
Former President and military ruler has emphasised on the political parties and government to extend their support for military operation in Karachi.
However, the leaders of the different political parties while talking to The Nation out rightly rejected the idea of imposing martial law as well as calling the military for operation in the economic hub of country.
When contacted, ANP’s provincial general secretary Bashir Jan differed with the suggestion of the former military chief Pervez Musharraf regarding imposing of martial law for launching an operation in the city.
ANP leader while reiterating his party’s old stance demanded that army should be called in under Article 190 of constitution to help the civilian administration to launch an operation in Karachi.  “We oppose the idea of imposing martial law, but support calling the army to work under the supervision of civilian administration for operation in Karachi’, ANP’s leader said, arguing that there is no any wrong thing to military operation, like government did in Swat, Lalakand and other areas of the KP. He censured the Pervez Musharraf of advocating for imposing martial rule in Karachi, saying that law and order worsened in martial law regime of Musharraf.
MQM leader and MNA Waseem Akhtar also termed the suggestion of imposing martial law in Karachi an illogical idea. He said that MQM rejects the proposal of the former military ruler. “Imposing martial law is not a solution to the problems as Pakistan is already suffering due to bad things of the military regimes,” MQM leader opined, adding that during the situation in Musharraf regime remained worst.
Opposing the idea, MQM leader said that what benefits had military operations brought in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa and Balochistan provinces, law and order situation still deteriorated. Ruling PPP’s leader Senator Saeed Ghani supported the views of MQM’s leader, terming the idea of calling army and imposing martial law an illogical suggestion.  Opposing any army operation in Karachi, the PPP leader said that operation will worsen the situation further as it was not possible to launch military operation in the city of Karachi, which hosts population of 20 million people. He claimed that the targeted action by police and rangers already in the process in the city as law enforcement agencies through their coordinated efforts achieving nabbing criminals in different areas, which proved positive results in the city.
PPP’s Senator opined that the military operations in past did not bring results, terming the idea of former army chief for imposing martial and launching military operation as ridiculous. PML-N leader Saleem Zia also opposed the imposing of martial law, demanding across the board operation against the criminals in the city.
He said that government lacks will of power, there is no any possibility of improvement in law and order because government busy in loot and plunder of national exchequer.
PML-Q’s provincial general secretary and advisor to CM for relief department Haleem Adil Shaikh criticized the suggestion of the Musharraf, saying that country went back 20 years during the martial law of Pervez Musharraf. He demanded for end of political interference in the police, which automatically result in achieving improvement in the law and order.