KARACHI, Oct 6: While a relative calm prevails in Lyari for the last couple of months, the presence of armed gangs is still felt in many congested localities. With narcotics business still thriving, certain areas of the town are literally controlled by gangs. Residents complained that their elected representatives could not dare to visit such areas “unless granted permission in special cases”.

Although the authorities claimed that law and order in the war-torn town had been restored after its localities were rid of gangsters, residents said that such areas were presently under the control of members of another gang.

Residents complained that Lyari had become most volatile place in the metropolis over the years due to easily availability of arms and narcotics in a situation where successive governments failed to carry out any development work. They said broken roads, poor water and sewerage system, few schools and lack of well-equipped hospitals reflected the fact that no attention was paid to the development of this town.

The situation turned ugly when rival gangs started targeting members of the other group over narcotics trade, land encroachment and other disputes, residents said.

However, according to some political analysts, the warfare between two rival gangs was a result of the political conflict between two parties. They said both the parties were presently in a coalition in the federal and Sindh governments.

They said that while there was a relative calm in the town, the ongoing targeted killings in many other parts of the city had a potential to spread to Lyari also especially when the coalition of the two political parties was becoming fragile with each incident of targeted killing.

According to some NGO representatives, violence has its roots in the deprivation of the people.

They said the present government was credited for the infrastructure development and educational needs of Lyari, which has always been a stronghold of the Pakistan People's Party. They added that social and economic development was essential to purge the area of criminal elements.

Mentioning that a number of schools, playgrounds and parks had been renovated in the recent past, they expressed the hope that the government would give more attention to development work in the area, by releasing funds meant for the uplift projects.

They also suggested that urgent steps should be taken for the completion of new educational projects, including Lyari University, a law college and a commerce college.

More importantly, special attention was needed to make Lyari medical college operational and in this regard all bureaucratic hindrances should be removed, they said.

They said much work has been done in the social sector under the Lyari Development Package, particularly in the field of education.

However, they said, more funds should be allocated to complete the ongoing projects so that the people deprived of basic facilities were no more attracted to arms and narcotics.