Businessmen seek urgent meeting of security officials after terror attack in Karachi

KARACHI: Businessmen on Tuesday urged the government to convene an urgent joint meeting of senior security officials to discuss the deteriorating law and order situation in Karachi that has slammed the business environment of the city.

The Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) wrote a letter, dated 20 February, to Chief Minister Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah, and high-ups of law enforcement agencies including Corp Commander Karachi, Sector Commander ISI Sindh, provincial Police and Rangers.

The letter said poor law and order situation “has triggered extreme anxiety amongst the members of the business and industrial community who are dubious of whether to continue their business in this city or move to somewhere else and stated that rising lawlessness has tarnished the image of the city, particularly after the gruesome terrorists’ attack on Karachi Police Office (KPO) at a time when the law enforcing agencies were already on a high alert due to ongoing Pakistan Super League”.

“We would like to mention that this chamber has been cautioning time and again about such threats but unfortunately no concrete steps were taken and the recent wave of lawlessness clearly indicates how fragile Karachi’s law and order has become,” read the letter.

The business community requests a meeting at the chamber “at the earliest possible time within this week” to address concerns so that the world knows what measures are being adopted to deal with the situation.

Letter pointed out that the Karachi Chamber’s My Karachi Exhibition, which has been staged since 2004, is set to be organized at the Expo Center on March 3-5 “but keeping in view the current state of affairs, we need advice on how to safely organize this event.”

According to the letter, KCCI is eager to hold the event “at any cost on the said dates regardless of several security threats as this exhibition was initiated in 2004 when the law and order situation was not so good as a bomb blast took place in Bohri Bazar Saddar but then Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz encouraged us to hold My Karachi exhibition to portray the soft and positive image of the Karachi, which has always been staged in all types of circumstances including law and order”.

KCCI said that the chamber is expecting a footfall of around 800,000 visitors at the event this year, and needs advice on how to hold a major event in a safe and secure manner.