PEACEW RKS

CONFLICT DYNAMICS IN SINDH

Huma Yusuf and Syed Shoaib Hasan

[ [
Cover photo: Aerial view of the southern province 

of Sindh, Pakistan. Photo by Capt. Paul Duncan 

(Defense video and imagery distribution system).

The views expressed in this report are those of 

the authors alone. They do not necessarily reflect 

the views of the United States Institute of Peace.

United States Institute of Peace

2301 Constitution Ave., NW

Washington, DC 20037

Phone: 202.457.1700

Fax: 202.429.6063

E-mail: usip_requests@usip.org

Web: www.usip.org

Peaceworks No. 104. First published 2015.

ISBN: 978-1-60127-277-5

© 2015 by the United States Institute of Peace

About the Report

This report, part of a broader series of work by the 

United States Institute of Peace (USIP) to map and study 

conflict dynamics across Pakistan, analyzes the southern 

province of Sindh, focusing on areas outside the major 

urban population center of Karachi. The report draws on 

research as well as interviews conducted by the authors 

between January and April 2014. 

About the Authors

Huma Yusuf is a Global Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson 

International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, 

and a writer for Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper and the 

International New York Times, among others. Previously 

a Karachi-based journalist, Yusuf won several awards for 

her reporting on subjects such as ethnic conflict, violent 

extremism, and flaws in state prosecution of rape cases, 

including the European Commission’s 2006 Prix Lorenzo 

Natali for Human Rights and Democracy Journalism. 

Syed Shoaib Hasan currently writes for the Wall Street 

Journal from Karachi, where he is based. Previously, 

he worked as BBC correspondent in both Karachi and 

Islamabad. Hasan has won national and international 

awards for his reporting on human rights and militancy, 

the economy, and regional politics in Pakistan.
PEACEWORKS • JANUARY 2015 • NO. 104

CONTENTS

Introduction ... 5

Violence in Sindh ... 7

Sindh’s Multifaceted Challenges ... 15

Conclusion and Recommendations ... 22

[Ensuring stability in Sindh is key to tackling the security 

situation in Karachi and in preventing the spread into the 

province of violent extremist and sectarian groups based 

in southern Punjab.]

USIP.ORG 3

CONFLICT DYNAMICS IN SINDH

Summary

§	 Sindh, Pakistan’s second largest province, is increasingly threatened by violent extremism, 

crime, tribal feuds, and nationalist and separatist movements. 

§	 Ensuring stability in Sindh is key to tackling the security situation in Karachi and in preventing the spread into the province of violent extremist and sectarian groups based in 

southern Punjab.

§	 Extremist organizations are increasingly active in Sindh’s central and northern districts. 

Sectarian militant groups and the antistate Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan are consolidating 

their presence in the province in rural areas.

§	 The escalating activities of extremist groups are having an impact on the province’s pluralistic society. The failure to protect Sindh’s religious minorities is likely to strain IndiaPakistan bilateral relations.

§	 Organized crime, particularly kidnapping for ransom rackets, is the greatest current security 

challenge in rural Sindh. Criminal gangs operate unchecked with the patronage of political 

parties and influential landowners, and the politicized police force do little to clamp down 

on criminal activities.

§	 Tribal feuds marked by tit-for-tat killings of rival tribe members are the prime driver of conflict and are fueling the spread of extremism as extremist groups exploit sectarian affiliations.

§	 Sindhi separatist groups are increasingly active but lack capacity and resources and are 

unlikely to develop into significant threats given that they are the main focus of law enforcement and intelligence agency crackdowns.

§	 Conflict in Sindh is exacerbated by systemic issues, including socioeconomic factors, an 

extreme urban-rural divide, poor governance, and a centuries-old feudal system.

§	 The government in Islamabad needs to ensure that the province does not become a new 

base for militants in the same way that FATA and southern Punjab are. 

§	 Six issues are key to enhancing stability, both within the province and across the country: 

political representation for religious minorities, law enforcement, legal system capacity, 

education policies, government accountability and transparency, and job creation.

USIP.ORG 5

CONFLICT DYNAMICS IN SINDH

Introduction

Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh is a study in contrasts defined by sharp urban-rural 

and socioeconomic divides. Its politics have ethnic, nationalist, and separatist elements but 

ultimately focus on ensuring that Sindh’s interests are well represented at the federal level. 

The province’s extremes range from the wealth and density of Karachi, the mega port city that 

dominates the economy not only of Sindh but also of Pakistan as a whole, and the poverty of 

Tharparkar, which in December 2013 was struck by a famine that continued through 2014. 

The rural districts of Sindh are home to some of the most impoverished citizens of Pakistan, 

many of them haris (sharecroppers) who are tied to waderos (landowners) in bonded labor arrangements. Industrial and commercial activity in Karachi has long outpaced the agricultural 

economy that flourishes on the banks of the Indus in Sindh, further exacerbating the province’s 

economic divisions.

Sindh is the second-largest province in the country, has an estimated population of 42.4 

million in 2010, and holds seventy-five of 342 seats in the National Assembly to Punjab’s 183 

(see map 1).1

 The provincial capital Karachi’s dominant position within Sindh defines the 

province’s politics and drives both urban-rural and ethnic tensions. Karachi is home to onethird of the province’s population, more than three-quarters of all employment opportunities, 

and influential federal government institutions, such as the Karachi Port Trust, Customs, and 

Civil Aviation Authority, as well as important military installations.2 The province’s schismatic landscape fuels resentments, and many ethnic Sindhis based in the province’s central and 

northern districts believe that Karachi’s assets and opportunities are denied to them.

Map 1. Pakistan and Sindh Province
6 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 104

Often described in terms of these contrasts and tensions, narratives about Sindh are also 

dominated by its reputation for diversity and tolerance. Sindh is bordered by some of the 

country’s most underdeveloped districts in Punjab to the north and Balochistan to the west. 

Many Punjabis and Balochis have migrated to Sindh in search of work—indeed, up to 40 

percent of Sindhis are of Baloch origin, hailing from tribes that settled in present-day Sindh 

in the sixteenth century. Karachi has a majority Urdu-speaking population that includes both 

muhajirs (migrants) from northern India and a large Pashtun population. The province is also 

home to 94 percent of the Pakistani Hindu community,3

 the country’s largest minority—three 

million of the country’s 180 million people.4 The central and northern districts of Sindh are 

the heartland of Sufi Islam in Pakistan, an inclusive and pluralistic strand of the religion, and 

Sindhis pride themselves on fostering communal harmony.

But Sindh, like other parts of Pakistan, is changing. A province historically known for its 

progressive politics, diversity, vibrant civil society, and Sufism is increasingly threatened by violent extremism, crime, and incidents of nationalist or separatist violence. Despite recent shifts 

in Sindh’s security landscape, discussions about the province’s conflict dynamics are dominated 

by analyses of political turf wars and militancy in Karachi and the tensions between muhajirs 

and ethnic Sindhis in the province’s urban areas. However, the security situation in the central and northern districts of the province—known colloquially as rural Sindh, despite rapid 

urbanization—is less well understood even as it is deteriorating. This report addresses this 

knowledge gap by mapping different types of violence in Sindh outside Karachi. For clarity, 

references to Sindh indicate all the province’s districts except Karachi.5

Understanding the conflict dynamics in Sindh is a timely and important exercise for Pakistani policymakers and Pakistan observers in the United States and international community 

for several reasons. The evolving security situation in Sindh is likely to have an impact on security and stability in Karachi and to have broader implications for the national economy, and 

vice versa. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) government that came to power in 

May 2013 has made a concerted effort to address ethno-political violence, terrorism, extortion, 

and crime that has escalated in Karachi since 2008. A security operation led by the paramilitary Rangers began in September 2013, resulting in the arrest of more than 1,800 suspected 

terrorists and criminals by March 2014.6 The operation fizzled out in August 2014 because of 

the reappointment of senior police officials, the interference of provincial political parties, and 

the lack of vision from the federal government. However, the need to stabilize Karachi remains 

urgent, and in this context it is important for policymakers to know how conflict dynamics in 

other parts of the province contribute to violence, particularly crime, in Karachi.

Moreover, the potential impact of law-enforcement initiatives in Karachi on the rest of the 

province should be clearly understood, especially given that the Sindh government has—for 

security reasons—transferred high-profile cases involving terrorism suspects from Karachi’s 

anti-terrorism courts (ATCs) to those in Hyderabad, Sukkur, and elsewhere in Sindh.7

 This 

heightens the likelihood of militant groups infiltrating Sindh to support their incarcerated 

colleagues or to plan jailbreaks with the help of militant networks currently spreading across 

the province.

Stability in Sindh is also key for the PMLN government to address one of its main priorities: tackling Pakistan’s crippling energy crisis. The country’s energy shortfall currently exceeds 

6,000 megawatts and leads to nationwide power outages of up to twelve hours per day in the 

summer months.8 The government’s National Power Policy launched in August 2013 emphasizes the importance of mining coal reserves in Sindh’s Thar fields and requiring independent 

A province historically 

known for its progressive 

politics, diversity, vibrant 

civil society, and Sufism is 

increasingly threatened by 

violent extremism, crime, 

and incidents of nationalist or 

separatist violence.
USIP.ORG 7

CONFLICT DYNAMICS IN SINDH

power producers to convert their plants from gas or fuel to coal-based models as a step toward 

energy self sufficiency.9 In January 2014, the Sindh provincial and federal government joined 

forces to launch the Thar Mining and Power Project, which is expected to add 1,200 megawatts to the national grid. The project was initiated after repeated delays stemming from Punjab Province concerns about the Sindh government having sole control of Thar’s coal resources 

and related revenues.

At the provincial level, the Sindh government has sought to attract foreign investment for 

the development of wind power corridors in Sindh to provide cheaper and more eco-friendly 

fuel sources for power plants. In April 2014, for example, the government secured $1 billion 

from Chinese investors for the first sponsored wind power project, which will be developed in 

the Jhampeer corridor in Thatta and Jamshoro districts and contribute 650 megawatts to the 

national grid.10 Moreover, 60 percent of Pakistan’s oil fields and 44 percent of its gas fields are 

located in Sindh, contributing 56 percent of the country’s oil production and 55 percent of its 

gas production.11 However, a worsening security situation in Sindh could impede developments 

in the energy sector—as it has in neighboring Balochistan Province, where separatists regularly 

target energy infrastructure and other commercial projects—and compromise interprovincial 

ties as well as the national economy, which suffers an annual 2 percent loss of gross domestic 

product as a result of the energy crisis.12

Since returning to power, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has also repeatedly expressed his 

desire to improve relations between Pakistan and India, particularly in terms of boosting trade. 

However, the growing entrenchment of extremist groups in Sindh could adversely affect this 

political goal. In recent years, the number of Hindu families migrating from Sindh to India to 

escape persecution has soared—according to the Pakistan Hindu Council, up to fifty per month, 

owing to forced conversions, kidnapping, and extortion.13 These migrations sour bilateral relations as Indian officials criticize Pakistan’s human rights record and Islamabad in turn accuses 

Delhi of opportunistically maligning the country. The continued persecution of Sindh’s Hindu 

community by extremist organizations could emerge as another point of contention between the 

two countries.

More important, an analysis of the evolving security situation in Sindh can both help identify the factors that enable violent extremism to flourish and highlight opportunities to stem its 

spread. To be clear, the districts of Sindh outside Karachi are stable and remain relatively free of 

the extremist violence that has wracked other parts of the country, such as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Incidents of violent extremism, though 

increasing in frequency at an alarming pace, are by no means the norm. Sindh is at a tipping 

point, which means that lawmakers continue to have the opportunity to implement policies to 

check the spread of violent extremism and crime in the province before it deteriorates further.

To this end, this report also identifies the factors making Sindh more vulnerable to the 

spread of extremism. These include poor governance and inadequate service delivery; changes 

in the feudal culture of Sindh, which has undermined the development of democratic institutions but is now eroding, leaving an institutional vacuum; the deep politicization of civil lawenforcing agencies; and socioeconomic factors, such as widespread poverty, underdevelopment, 

and failure to develop the province’s educational system.

Violence in Sindh

Violence in Sindh—whether ethno-political, militant, sectarian, or crime-related—is concentrated in Karachi. Of all the reported violent incidents that took place in the province between 

A worsening security situation 

in Sindh could impede 

developments in the energy 

sector and compromise 

interprovincial ties as well as 

the national economy.
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PEACEWORKS 104

1988 and 2010, 63 percent occurred in Karachi, including 70 percent of targeted assassinations 

and 66 percent of terrorist attacks.14 In 2013, 98.2 percent of the 1,668 killings that were reported in the province took place in Karachi.15 One major exception was the terrorist attack 

against the headquarters of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in Sukkur in July 2013.16 The 

attack—the first of its kind in northern Sindh—has prompted growing interest in the security 

situation in Sindh outside Karachi. While announcing the recruitment of ten thousand additional police officials for Sindh in February 2014, Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah called on 

law-enforcement agencies to check the spread of terrorism and crime and to prevent the rest of 

the province from facing the multiple security challenges that plague Karachi.17

For now, the presence in Sindh of Islamist militants affiliated with the antistate Tehrike-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), al-Qaeda, and other Islamist groups remains limited. But other 

violent extremist groups—particularly sectarian ones such as the Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jammat 

(ASWJ), known as the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) until it was banned in 2002, and its 

militant wing, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ)—have consolidated their presence in the province, 

particularly in northern Sindh. Law enforcement and politicians point to the increase in attacks against Sufi shrines and Shia politicians and the persecution of the local Hindu community as evidence of the entrenchment of banned extremist groups in Sindh. Growing interest 

in the law and order situation in the central and northern districts of Sindh is timely, given 

that the province is witnessing an escalation in militancy and violent extremism, crime, tribal 

warfare, and attacks by Sindhi nationalist and separatist groups.

Islamist Militancy and Violent Extremism

The spread of Islamist militancy and violent extremism in Sindh’s central and northern districts 

has long been checked by the province’s progressive politics and vibrant civil society. In the 1980s, 

when young Pakistanis from Karachi, southern Punjab, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (then known 

as the North-West Frontier Province) were being recruited to participate in the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan, Sindh was embroiled in the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy 

(MRD), which began in 1983 to protest General Zia ul-Haq’s military dictatorship (1977–88).

But Sindh is not immune to the spread of Islamist militancy throughout Pakistan spearheaded by the TTP and its affiliates, including al-Qaeda, that seek to overthrow the democratic 

system and impose Islamic (sharia) law. On July 24, 2013, suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the headquarters of the ISI in Sukkur, killing eight people, including three intelligence 

officials, and injuring more than fifty others. The Mohmand chapter of the TTP, which has a 

large presence in Karachi, and the Punjabi Taliban (comprising recruits from the Punjab province) claimed responsibility for the attack, the first of its kind against a military installation in 

northern Sindh.18 Subsequently, in November 2013, unidentified gunmen shot and killed four 

policemen in Hyderabad district in an attack characteristic of the TTP. Police investigations 

in July 2014 revealed that the militants who carried out a major militant attack at the cargo 

terminal of Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport on June 8 purchased mobile SIM cards in 

Sindh’s Nawabshah district, suggesting that TTP and its affiliated groups are increasingly active in Sindh’s central districts and use them as a base for logistical planning and networking.19 Moreover, militants from Sindh believed to have al-Qaeda links were involved in an attempt to hijack a Pakistan Navy frigate from the Karachi Naval Dockyard in September 2014: 

Owais Jakhrani, a former navy sailor who helped plan the attack, hailed from Jacobabad; three 

other militants suspected of involvement were arrested from Larkana and Jamshoro.20 “The 

next breeding ground of militancy in Pakistan will be interior Sindh, particularly the districts 

In 2013, 98.2 percent of 

the 1,668 killings that were 

reported in the province took 

place in Karachi.
USIP.ORG 9

CONFLICT DYNAMICS IN SINDH

bordering southern Punjab,” suggests Tariq Pervez, a former policeman and former director 

general of the Federal Investigation Agency.21

But these attacks were not the first sign of a militant presence in northern Sindh. In October 

2010, twenty-seven NATO oil tankers were torched in Shikarpur, indicating that Taliban affiliates had infiltrated the province.22 Moreover, revelations in the media in 2009 that the United 

States was flying Predator drones from Pakistani soil, including the Jacobabad Air Base in Sindh, 

fueled anti-American sentiment in the province—as elsewhere in Pakistan—providing Sindhbased militants with a local example with which to drive recruitment.23 According to several 

Sindh-based journalists interviewed for this report, young militant recruits from northern Sindh, 

especially Khairpur district, are traveling to North Waziristan Agency in FATA in growing numbers to fight alongside the Pakistan Taliban or join the jihad in Afghanistan. These recruits are 

facilitated and supported by the religious political party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazlur Rehman, 

which is known to have links with the Pakistan Taliban and is increasingly active in northern 

Sindh, especially in terms of establishing new madrassahs.24

“There is great potential for a big TTP presence in the province,” said a senior police official 

with experience in counterterrorism who served in Hyderabad Division until December 2013. 

He pointed to the many petrol pumps on highways en route to Sukkur owned by Pashtuns. 

Pashtuns are gradually developing unofficial settlements on land near the petrol pumps, including housing and seminaries. Local law-enforcing agencies are concerned that these settlements could offer networking opportunities and hideouts for the TTP as they try to further 

infiltrate the province’s central and northern districts.

According to Sindh-based journalists and politicians, various violent extremist organizations 

that emerged in southern Punjab in the 1980s—including Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad, and LeJ—are also active in Sindh, increasingly using the province as a recruiting ground. 

Jamaatud Dawa, the LeT’s welfare wing, for example, is popular in the central and southern districts of Sindh, such as Sanghar and Umerkot, where it established a presence following the floods 

in 2010 and 2011, during which Sindh was the most severely affected province in the country.25

It is also consolidating its presence in the northern Sindhi district of Kashmore. Jamaatud Dawa 

gained prominence when the welfare group proved more adept than government bodies in providing relief goods and setting up refugee camps. Within a few weeks of the flooding in 2010, 

the organization had established thirteen relief and six medical camps.26 In 2011, flood-affected 

refugees at camps set up by the Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation, the philanthropy arm of Jamaatud 

Dawa, received copies of the Quran and prayer mats in addition to twice daily meals. Camp residents, including Hindu families, were also asked to participate in Islamic education classes.27 By 

cultivating support in the wake of a natural disaster, Jamaatud Dawa has been able to infiltrate 

Sindh and has gone on to establish madrassahs across the province.

Anti-Shia sectarian groups such as the ASWJ and its militant wing the LeJ have a growing 

presence in the province. The groups conduct their activities and establish networks through 

madrassahs, which have been mushrooming in central and northern Sindh in recent years.

“Khairpur is known to be a base for the LeJ,” the senior police official with counterterrorism 

experience explained.28 The ASWJ has long maintained a presence in Sindh’s northern district 

of Khairpur—then leader Allama Sher Hyderi was killed in the district in August 2009. Following his release from jail in July 2011, Malik Ishaq, the founder of LeJ, addressed a major 

rally in Khairpur that was organized by the Jamiah Haidriah, a madrassah known to support 

LeJ’s activities. Moreover, Akram Lahori, a cofounder of the LeJ, was born in Mirpurkhas, and 

currency notes in his home town of Digri are commonly marked with anti-Shia slogans, according 
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to senior police officials. The ASWJ is currently on a recruitment drive in Sindh—by some 

estimates the groups has signed up twenty-five thousand members in Sindh outside Karachi in 

recent years.29 Its growing influence in many districts of upper and central Sindh, particularly 

Khairpur, Shikarpur, and Ghotki, which are proximate to the group’s original base in southern 

Punjab, is evident in the increasing number of sectarian clashes.

In April 2012, for example, ten people were injured in an exchange of gunfire between Sunni 

and Shia Muslims. Violence erupted when shops owned by Sunnis were burnt down to protest 

an arson attack on the kiosk of a vendor hailing from the Shia community.30 Similarly, ten 

people from the Sunni and Shia communities were injured during a sectarian scuffle in Khairpur’s Mir Ali Bazaar in December 2011. Fighting began when members of one sect objected to 

members of the other sect listening to devotional poetry at a loud volume.31 Protests by sectarian 

organizations also regularly bring Khairpur city to a standstill, underscoring the groups’ street 

power. For example, a strike was observed in Khairpur city in April 2014 in response to a call 

by the Sunni Action Committee to protest the arrest of its activists on charges of engaging in 

violent incidents.32 The city also came to a standstill amid protest demonstrations and a strike 

call in January 2014 following the assassination of a Shia activist by unidentified gunmen.33

The potential for sectarian strife to erupt in upper Sindh is significant given the affinity of 

the local Sufi culture for Shia rituals and beliefs. Additionally, certain Sindhi-speaking Baloch 

tribes—such as the Talpurs in Khairpur and Umerkot—have historic ties to Iran and share cultural practices with the Shia community. Sectarian militant groups grew in strength in the 1980s 

in southern Punjab by channeling resentment against Shia landowners by primarily Sunni peasants. Groups such as the ASWJ are now looking to exploit similar divides in Sindh, particularly 

the sectarian differences between rival tribes: The anti-Shia rhetoric of extremist groups is reiterated by Sunni tribal leaders and politicians to undermine political rivals from the other sect.

The growing presence of extremist groups is having a discernible impact on Sindhi society 

and undermining the long tradition of Sufi Islam in the province. “Banned groups are growing 

in strength,” said Nasir Shah, a member of the Sindh provincial assembly from Sukkur affiliated 

with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). “Extremists started by targeting Shias then moved on to 

the [religious] minorities and are now even attacking Sunnis like the Sufis.”34 Extremist groups 

are primarily members of the Deobandi sect of Islam, hard-liners who believe the religious practices of Sufis, who mostly hail from the Barelvi sect, are un-Islamic. “The centuries-old Sindhi 

culture that treats the [Sufi] shrine as the center of social activity is fading away,” said a Karachibased journalist who covers Sindh and has written for Sindhi-language newspapers.35 Numerous attacks have been made against Sufi leaders and shrines, and more violence against Sufi 

targets is likely. For example, in February 2013, a senior Barelvi leader, Syed Ghulam Hussain 

Shah, narrowly escaped a bomb attack in Jacobabad just days before a bombing at the Ghulam 

Shah Ghazi shrine in Maari village in Shikarpur killed four people and injured twenty-seven 

others.36 The attacks heightened tensions between Barelvis and Deobandis and illustrated the 

growing capacity of extremist groups in the province. Intelligence agencies in February 2014 

warned the Sindh government that eight major Sufi shrines remained at high risk of being attacked by militants.37

Sindh’s Hindus have been especially affected by the rise of violent extremist groups in 

the province. “The Hindu community in Sindh is a business community that has long been 

extorted and is vulnerable to kidnapping for ransom by criminal elements,” explained a Sindhi 

journalist who covers the province for an international media outlet.38 “But that problem of 

criminality is now evolving into one of extremism.” Hindus are regularly abducted and forced 

The ASWJ is currently on a 

recruitment drive in Sindh—

by some estimates the 

groups has signed up twentyfive thousand members in 

Sindh outside Karachi in 

recent years.
USIP.ORG 11

CONFLICT DYNAMICS IN SINDH

to convert to Islam. Up to twenty cases of kidnapping are reported each month to the Hindu 

Council in Karachi. In March 2012, then member of the National Assembly Azra Fazl (and 

the sister of former president Asif Zardari) acknowledged the scale of the problem, telling the 

assembly that abducted Hindu girls are detained in madrassahs across Sindh and forced to 

marry Muslim men.39 Her comments followed the high-profile case of Rinkle Kumari, whose 

parents claim she was abducted and forcibly converted to Islam through marriage. Kumari’s 

case was heard by a three-member bench of the Supreme Court, headed by then chief justice 

Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. The court decided that Kumari and two other allegedly abducted Hindu girls should be allowed to choose whether to remain with their Muslim husbands or return to their families. All three chose to stay. Their families claim that this decision 

was guided by intense political pressure, especially the close involvement of Mian Abdul Haq, 

then a member of the National Assembly and the PPP, in Kumari’s case.40

Hindus are also increasingly fearful of being falsely charged with blasphemy, which is punishable by death in Pakistan, or targeted in mob violence. Their fears are not misplaced: More than 

two hundred people attacked a Hindu temple in Larkana city in March 2014 following allegations 

that a Hindu man had burned pages of the Quran in a dumpster. The alleged desecration also led 

to business closures and strikes in subdistricts across northern Sindh as well as protests and related 

clashes with local police.41 In a more macabre incident in October 2013, members of ASWJ dug 

up the grave of a Hindu man in Pangrio in Sindh’s Badin district to protest his burial in the same 

graveyard as Muslims.42 In light of such incidents, many Hindus are opting to migrate from Sindh 

to India to escape persecution. “These things have shaken our community, and people feel forced to 

migrate,” said Khatau Mal, a leader of the Hindu community and former member of the National 

Assembly affiliated with the PPP.43 For example, 171 Pakistani Hindus hailing from the tribal 

Bheel community in September 2012 arrived in India on pilgrim visas but announced that they 

would not return to Pakistan because they feared violence if they did.44

Religious minorities other than Hindus are also increasingly affected by the shifts in Sindh’s 

inclusive culture. For example, a crowd led by a member of ASWJ in May 2014 accused four 

Jehovah’s Witnesses who had set up a stall in Mirpurkhas of blasphemy because they were 

selling books containing images of God and Moses.45

Crime

Criminal activities, particularly kidnapping for ransom, pose the greatest security challenge for 

law enforcement in Sindh outside Karachi. The province’s riverine area, which extends from 

Kashmore to the Indus delta, has been home to criminals—known locally as dacoits (bandits)—

for centuries. But small-scale banditry has in recent years been replaced by organized crime 

carried out by well-networked gangs. These gangs comprise between twenty-five and thirty 

members—though some have more than fifty members—and are especially active in Shikarpur, 

Sukkur, Larkana, Nawabshah, and Hyderabad districts. Since 2010, Hyderabad in particular 

has emerged as a safe haven for criminals who find sanctuary in the slums of Qasimabad in 

Hyderabad city. The gangs operate across several districts. For example, one large Sukkur-based 

gang operates throughout the province between Hyderabad and Sukkur.

Criminal gangs in Sindh’s riverine area are able to operate unchecked because they are patronized by influential landlords, tribal chiefs, politicians, and even pirs, Sufi leaders tasked with 

managing shrines. Criminal gangs work on behalf of these entities in exchange for protection 

from the law and facilitation of their activities by the police. “Criminals are not the pawns of 
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politicians and landlords,” one Kashmore-based landowner explained. “Rather they are independent entities that should be considered important stakeholders in Sindh.”46

Tribal chiefs and landowners rely on criminal gangs to carry out revenge attacks and murders on their behalf in the course of long-running tribal clashes. Politicians, meanwhile, call on 

these gangs to rally—or intimidate—voters during election campaigns—as one Dadu-based 

landowner from a political family put it, “Muscle power works best during elections.”47 Highprofile members of the national and provincial assemblies from Sindh patronize the powerful 

heads of criminal gangs as a way to exercise control over their constituencies. Many political 

figures and high-ranking police officials also have financial arrangements with criminal gangs, 

receiving pay-offs in exchange for patronage and protection.

The criminal gangs of Sindh are primarily involved in kidnapping for ransom. The gangs 

have developed a kidnappers’ economy in which gangs sell kidnap victims to each other, the 

overall ransom cost growing with each sale. In many cases, kidnapping victims are sold onward 

to gangs in Balochistan or to the Pakistan Taliban in FATA.

The increasingly organized nature of crime in Sindh is affecting the security situation in 

Karachi. Kidnappings in the commercial capital are at an all-time high: 166 people were kidnapped from Karachi in 2013, up from 127 in 2012, according to the Citizen-Police Liaison 

Committee. These statistics are for reported cases; the actual number is significantly higher.48

Moreover, kidnapping rings in Sindh support the revenue-generating activities of the Pakistan 

Taliban and its affiliated groups, which transfer kidnap victims from Karachi to the tribal areas 

along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, where they can demand higher ransoms.

The impunity with which Sindh’s kidnapping gangs operate is also stoking communal tensions, which are readily exploited by violent extremist groups. Within Sindh, the Hindu community is the most vulnerable to kidnapping. According to Sindh government figures, between 

March 2008 and November 2011, 143 people from religious minorities were kidnapped in 

Sindh, 116 of whom were Hindu (though representatives of the Hindu community say these 

figures are a gross underestimate).49 Another survey found that Hindu children are more likely 

to be kidnapped in upper Sindh: nine of twenty-three minors kidnapped between January 

2008 and December 2010 were from the Hindu community.50 Hindus are more vulnerable 

to kidnapping because they are often among the most affluent members of their communities with significant investments in cotton ginning factories, fertilizer plants, and other agrobusiness. Many of the Hindus who have migrated from Sindh to India cite the high incidence 

of kidnapping in Sindh as one of the major reasons behind their decision to relocate.

In addition to kidnapping, criminal gangs in Sindh are also engaged in extortion, armed robberies, and the smuggling of arms, petrol, and consumer goods. The gangs also provide sanctuary to 

other criminals in the challenging terrain of the riverine areas. Concerns are growing among police 

officials in Karachi and elsewhere in the province that Sindh’s criminal gangs could facilitate TTP 

infiltration by providing militants safe haven. A growing TTP presence in Sindh would not only 

destabilize the province but also exacerbate the threat from militancy in Karachi, as illustrated by 

the June 2014 airport attack, which may have been partially planned in Sindh.

Tribal Clashes

Long-running tribal disputes marked by tit-for-tat killings of rival tribe members remain the 

leading cause of violence in Sindh and fuel the province’s criminal culture. Gunfights between 

rival tribes claimed 832 lives—including those of 116 children—in 278 separate incidents 

across Sindh in 2013.51 Members of tribes arm themselves with smuggled weapons and pay 

Gunfights between rival tribes 

claimed 832 lives—including 

those of 116 children—in 

278 separate incidents across 

Sindh in 2013.
USIP.ORG 13

CONFLICT DYNAMICS IN SINDH

criminals to assassinate their rivals to settle disputes, thereby fueling the criminal culture in 

the province. Police officials—many of whom have tribal affiliations themselves—often spur 

rather than check the violence or are pressurized by an influential tribal chief, landowners, or 

politicians not to interfere in tribal matters.

Tribal clashes are especially common in northern Sindh, particularly among Sindh-based 

tribes of Baloch origin, but the problem exists throughout the province. For example, eleven 

tribal disputes involving twenty-two tribes are under way in the Larkana division—an administrative division comprising the districts of Larkana, Kashmore, Qamber Shahdadkot, Shikarpur, and Jacobabad. Kashmore is the worst hit with five ongoing clashes between the following 

tribes: Jakhrani and Bhayo; Sawand and Sabzoi; Jhakrani and Kandrani; Chachar and Bhayo; 

and Sangi and Badani. In the first six months of 2013, 147 people were killed and seventy-one 

injured as a result of these tribal feuds alone.52

In addition to claiming lives, tribal clashes paralyze society and undermine socioeconomic 

development in upper Sindh. According to a study carried out between 2010 and 2012, tribal 

warfare led to the closure of thirty-seven schools in Ghotki district, eighty-eight in Khairpur, 

and twelve in Shikarpur and to the destruction of three schools in Shikarpur’s Kingri subdistrict.53 Tribal clashes also limit economic opportunities for young Sindhis because certain 

districts become no-go zones for members of warring tribes. Rural health units in conflict-hit 

areas also remain closed, causing further difficulties for the local population.

In addition to perpetuating crime in Sindh, tribal clashes are fueling the spread of extremism. One of the longest running and bloodiest in the province is between the Mehr and Jatoi 

clans in Shikarpur. Because the tribes have different sectarian affiliations—Mehrs are Sunni 

and Jatois are Shia—sectarian militant organizations have exploited the tribal rivalry to perpetuate their ideology. Ibrahim Jatoi, the head of the Jatoi clan and a member of the National 

Peoples Party, escaped a bomb attack in Shikarpur by militants affiliated with the anti-Shia 

LeJ in the run-up to the May 2013 general elections. According to a Sukkur-based journalist, 

members of the Mehr clan promoted Deobandi groups, such as ASWJ, to counter the political 

influence of the rival Jatoi clan, allowing them to operated unchecked in the area and coordinating political and charitable events alongside the groups. By taking advantage of overlapping 

tribal, political, and sectarian rivalries, groups such as the ASWJ and LeJ have been able to 

entrench themselves in upper Sindh.

Nationalist and Separatist Violence

The politics of Sindh has long been influenced by ethno-nationalist sentiments. The roots of 

Sindhi nationalism lie in the pre-Partition era and were exacerbated by the influx of Urduspeaking refugees (mujahirs) at the time of Partition and the subsequent subjugation of the 

Sindhi language by Urdu (Urdu replacing Sindhi as the medium of instruction in 1958).54

Over the decades, tense relations between Sindhis and other ethnic groups, especially muhajirs 

and Punjabis in urban areas, and the relationship between the province and national government have created a strong desire for Sindhi interests to be represented and protected at both 

the provincial and federal levels.

Despite this trend, Sindhi nationalist parties have always fared poorly at the polls. “The 

nationalists have never gained any real following on the ground and are only popular among 

students and youth from rural backgrounds,” PPP’s Nasir Shah explained.55 The father of Sindhi nationalism, G. M. Syed, lost his constituency in the 1970 elections to a candidate of the 

PPP, which has since dominated the province’s politics. Sidelined from the political process, 

According to a study 

carried out between 2010 

and 2012, tribal warfare led 

to the closure of thirty-seven 

schools in Ghotki district, 

eighty-eight in Khairpur, 

and twelve in Shikarpur 

and to the destruction of 

three schools in Shikarpur’s 

Kingri subdistrict.
14 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 104

some Sindhi nationalist and separatist elements have taken up insurgents’ tactics in an effort 

to defend the province’s political interests, territorial unity, and resource rights. The most wellknown of these is the Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz (JSMM), the political arm of the militant 

Sindhu Desh Liberation Army (SDLA), led by Shafi Burfat, which was banned in April 2013 

for its alleged involvement in acts of province-wide violence. Groups such as the SDLA and 

JSMM lack recruits, resources, and training and engage primarily in sabotage, such as smallscale attacks against railway tracks, electricity lines, and banks.

Baloch nationalists engaged in the long-running antistate insurgency in the neighboring 

Balochistan province are also active in the border areas of Sindh. Following a military operation in Balochistan’s Dera Bugti district in 2006 in which tribal chief Nawab Akbar Bugti 

was killed, more than 175,000 members of the Bugti tribe sought refuge in upper Sindh and 

southern Punjab.56 Baloch refugees from Kohlu and other insurgency-hit parts of the province 

have also increasingly sought sanctuary in Sindh in recent years. The presence of these refugees 

has caused the Baloch separatist movement to spill over into Sindh, especially in the border 

and northern districts of Jacobabad, Kashmore, and Qambar Shahdadkot. For example, two 

people were killed and ten others injured on August 29, 2012, when a bomb exploded on railway tracks in Jacobabad in an attack widely believed to have been carried out by the Baloch 

Liberation Army separatist group. Internally displaced young Baloch men based in Sindh who 

have few options for education or employment are increasingly joining the movement or being 

recruited by the violent extremist organizations that are becoming entrenched in Sindh.

Nationalist groups carried out twenty-nine of the 215 terrorist attacks documented in Sindh in 

2012, which claimed thirteen lives and injured fifty-two people.57 Sindhi nationalist groups have 

escalated their activities throughout the province in recent years, a trend that is likely to persist. 

For example, one person was killed and thirty others injured when an explosion derailed a passenger train near the Ghaghar Phatak bridge on February 4, 2014, approximately twenty-eight 

miles east of Karachi, an attack believed to have been carried out by Sindh nationalist groups. Two 

JSMM activists were also arrested on January 25, 2014, after seventeen explosions caused by small 

improvised “cracker” bombs occurred in multiple towns across the province in the lead-up to a 

JSMM strike action.58 Similar small-scale explosions took place in Hyderabad, Dadu, Kotri, and 

Nowshera Feroze districts ahead of another JSMM strike on October 29, 2013.

Sindhi nationalist groups are becoming more active for a number of reasons. One is the 

groups’ response to the growing intensity of the insurgency in Balochistan, from which they 

draw inspiration. According to a Sindhi journalist, Sindh nationalist groups have become increasingly popular on university campuses in the province since 2007, when the low-lying 

insurgency in Balochistan intensified, thus providing an example for young Sindhi nationalists to emulate. Police officials describe increasing levels of collaboration and knowledge- and 

resource-sharing between Sindhi and Baloch nationalist groups in upper Sindh, which also 

explains the growing capacity and increased frequency of attacks by Sindh nationalist groups.

Nationalist sentiments were also stoked by the sudden death in April 2012 of Bashir 

Ahmed Qureshi, the former leader of the Sindhi nationalist political party, Jeay Sindh Qaumi 

Mahaz (JSQM), a month after the party staged a rally in Karachi calling for an independent 

Sindh Province. The party and Qureshi’s family believe that he was poisoned by representatives of the state or security establishment and have called for government officials and law 

enforcement to be charged with his murder. At the time, the JSQM called successful strikes 

that brought most Sindhi cities, including Karachi, to a standstill. Inconclusive investigations 

into Qureshi’s death—coupled with the killing of two JSQM leaders in Nowshera Feroze on 

Internally displaced young 

Baloch men based in Sindh 

who have few options for 

education or employment 

are increasingly joining 

the movement or being 

recruited by the violent 

extremist organizations 

that are becoming 

entrenched in Sindh.
USIP.ORG 15

CONFLICT DYNAMICS IN SINDH

March 21, 2014—are likely to fuel resentment against the state and attract more support for 

Sindhi nationalist groups, which have historically enjoyed little support in the region.

According to a senior police officer with counterterrorism experience, Pakistan’s intelligence 

and law-enforcement agencies currently prioritize countering the threat posed by Sindhi nationalist groups above all others, including violent extremist groups and criminal gangs. Young Sindhis 

with alleged links to Sindhi nationalist groups are regularly intimidated and arrested, particularly 

in Dadu, Shikarpur, Jacobabad, and Jamshoro. As one Kashmore-based landowner put it, “For 

the security agencies, the nationalists are the only problem in Sindh.”59 In December 2013, for 

example, the Sindh government directed the provincial police to launch a crackdown on banned 

Sindhi nationalist groups, especially the JSMM, and threatened to take legal action against Sindhi 

newspapers that had published the outlawed group’s strike calls.60 According to a report published 

by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in December 2014, the mutilated bodies of nine 

Sindh nationalists and separatists, including those with links to the JSMM, were found across 

Sindh’s rural areas. Sindhi nationalist parties and human rights groups have accused the intelligence agencies of carrying out extra-judicial killings in an effort to crush the nationalist movement.

Journalists and police officials interviewed for this report also claim that intelligence officials 

are facilitating the spread of violent extremist organizations in upper Sindh in an effort to counter the appeal of Sindhi nationalist groups, which are secular in nature. “Sindh has always been a 

bastion of anti-establishment politics, and the state has always believed the best way to weaken 

leftists and nationalists in Pakistan has been through the use of religion,” the Sindh political 

correspondent for a national newspaper explained.61 This tactic is similar to the one intelligence 

agencies have used in Balochistan, where madrassahs managed by extremist organizations have 

been allowed to mushroom in recent years, particularly in insurgency-hit areas like Turbat.62 The 

rapid proliferation of madrassahs in upper Sindh, the spread of wall chalkings by violent extremist organizations calling for recruits and promoting sectarian messages, and the growing number 

of incidents of extremist violence suggest that a similar strategy is under way in Sindh. If it is not 

checked, this tactic could have serious consequences for stability in the province.

Sindh’s Multifaceted Challenges

As this analysis suggests, the province is at a tipping point—still relatively stable but vulnerable to 

threats from multiple violent actors. Extremist, criminal, tribal, and nationalist violence in Sindh is 

perpetrated by different actors with various motivations. Proactive and comprehensive policymaking could yet prevent Sindh from facing the levels of conflict witnessed in other parts of Pakistan, 

such as FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. However, systemic issues create conditions within the 

province that risk driving greater conflict and exacerbating cycles of violence. These issues include 

socioeconomic factors, such as poverty, and Sindh’s extreme urban-rural divide, poor governance, 

the lack of basic service delivery, and the erosion of a centuries-old feudal system.

Poverty and Inequality

The rural areas of Sindh have among the highest incidence of poverty in Pakistan—53 percent 

of the population in rural Sindh live below the poverty line.63 Tenancy and sharecropping remain the most common form of employment in rural Sindh, and only a minority of farmers 

own their own land. Variations in rainfall—resulting in both extreme flooding and drought in 

recent years—make sharecropping an unreliable occupation, and many rural Sindhis are forced 

to seek seasonal employment in brick kilns and carpet factories. Thousands of others work in 

53 percent of the 

population in rural Sindh 

live below the poverty line.
16 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 104

inhuman conditions as bonded laborers, forever indebted to waderos (landowners). The incidence of sharecropping and bonded labor varies throughout the province, but indebtedness is 

widespread. For example, according to a survey conducted by the Thardeep Rural Development 

Programme, 98 percent of the families of carpet weavers in Tharparkar were in debt in 2003.64

Most indebted families had secured multiple loans and many were using the money to purchase 

food. This trend is likely to persist in the medium-term. According to the World Bank, nearly six 

hundred thousand people will enter the job market in Sindh each year as a result of the growing 

population and increased rural-urban migration, but only 350,000 jobs will be created, leading to 

soaring unemployment rates and further indebtedness.65

Other development indicators are also extremely poor in rural districts. According to the National Nutrition Survey 2011, Sindh is the most food-deprived province of Pakistan. Only 28 

percent of households count as food secure while 16.8 percent of households in the province face 

severe hunger. The number of malnourished children in the province is also increasing, up from 

44 percent in 2001 to 49.8 percent in 2011, a pattern that partly explains the high number of 

child deaths during the drought and famine in the Tharparkar district, where drought conditions 

affected more than 250,000 families and led to the deaths of more than 470 people in the first 

eleven months of 2014.66 Only one in every ten people in Sindh has access to safe drinking water, 

and only one in ten women are literate.

Politicians and journalists interviewed for this report blamed poverty and inequality for the 

rise of extremism in Sindh, arguing that students who enroll in madrassahs to receive a free 

education and free meals are recruited by extremist groups and that others turn to militancy 

out of desperation and a lack of better options. Recent research, however, has shown that this is 

not necessarily the case. In a 2012 study, Graeme Blair and his colleagues surveyed six thousand 

Pakistanis across the country and socioeconomic groups and found that poor Pakistanis dislike 

militancy more than their middle-class counterparts and that the dislike of militant groups is 

three times stronger among the urban poor living in districts that have experienced militant violence (likely because of the direct exposure to violence).67 Such findings highlight that the causal 

link between poverty and rising extremism is difficult to establish, though, unlike the urban poor 

surveyed, who have experienced militant violence, many Sindhis have not been directly exposed 

to extremist rhetoric and the fallout of militancy before and might be more vulnerable to engaging with extremist groups. In the unique context of Sindh, poverty and indebtedness might 

also contribute to the rise in extremism because most moneylenders outside Sindh’s urban areas 

are Hindu, and the resentments of those in debt can be exploited by extremist groups and fuel 

communal violence.

It is also clear that poverty often drives criminality and, as described, criminal activities increasingly facilitate militancy in Sindh and Pakistan more broadly, both directly and indirectly, 

through fundraising for militant groups, intimidation of communities, and creating communal 

tensions that extremist groups can exploit. Poverty also drives tribal clashes in Sindh as bonded 

and other indebted laborers are forced to participate in tribal feuds and carry out revenge attacks 

in partial fulfillment of their debt obligations.

Rural-Urban Divide

Sindh is often described as having a dual economy in which economic and industrial activity in 

urban centers such as Karachi does not translate into economic gains for the rest of the province. 

Karachi is home to 30 percent of Sindh’s total population and 62 percent of its urban population. More than 70 percent of the total industrial labor force in Sindh is employed in Karachi’s 

According to the World Bank, 

nearly six hundred thousand 

people will enter the job 

market in Sindh each year 

as a result of the growing 

population and increased 

rural-urban migration, but 

only 350,000 jobs will be 

created, leading to soaring 

unemployment rates and 

further indebtedness.
USIP.ORG 17

CONFLICT DYNAMICS IN SINDH

large-scale industrial sector, and 78 percent of private-sector jobs in the province are also based 

in the city.68 Sindh’s major health-care facilities, educational institutions, and media outlets are 

also concentrated there.

In addition to Karachi, Hyderabad, Shikarpur, and Nowshera Feroze are all high-density urban districts. The population density in Sindh is higher than the national average, both because 

of Karachi’s status as a mega-city of eighteen million and of rapid urbanization in other parts 

of the province. Urbanization rates in Hyderabad and Sukkur districts, for example, are over 50 

percent.69 Urbanization in Sindh is fueled by migration from rural to urban areas in search of 

employment, particularly in the wake of natural disasters, such as the 2010 and 2011 flooding. 

The population displacement is exacerbating the dual economy and the rural-urban divide, and 

consequently rural poverty, and contributing to the increase in criminality and recruitment by 

violent extremist groups in non-urban areas.

But rural-urban migration is also increasing the poverty in urban Sindh. According to the 

United Nations Development Program, urban poverty in Sindh is higher than rural by two percentage points.70 High levels of poverty in urban Sindh are contributing to soaring criminality 

throughout the province. Poor migrants from Sindh participate in criminal activities—including extortion, smuggling, kidnapping for ransom, armed robbery, and militancy—in Karachi, 

underscoring how security in the port city depends on stability elsewhere in Sindh, and vice 

versa. Kidnapping gangs, for example, take advantage of the rural-urban disconnect in Sindh, 

detaining victims from the urban centers of Karachi and Hyderabad in the riverine area of upper 

Sindh. The failure to address skewed development in the province could fuel various types of 

conflict and criminality in the near future.

Education Crisis

Pakistan currently faces what has been termed an education emergency—twenty-five million 

children are currently out of school. The situation is especially acute in Sindh. Half of all children 

between the ages of five and sixteen—approximately 6.1 million—are not in school. The number of government schools is also inadequate: a total of 47,394 schools, of which 91 percent are 

primary schools and only 1 percent are higher secondary schools. Attendance in Sindh’s public 

schools is lower than in other parts of Pakistan and dropout rates are also high.

The province also has the gravest problem of ghost schools—that is, nonfunctional schools 

that nonetheless draw funds from the provincial government and maintain ghost teachers on 

salary. In January 2013, the Supreme Court responded to a public petition to investigate the 

state of education in Sindh and ordered the Sindh High Court to conduct a survey of government schools in the province. The survey found 6,164 ghost schools in Sindh to a total of 8,252 

throughout Pakistan and that every seventh school in Sindh is nonfunctional, and the districts 

of Thatta and Tharparkar have the highest number of these, 897 and 858, respectively.71 Where 

schools do exist, they are in an appalling condition. The Sindh education department reports 

that 77 percent of government school buildings are in an “unsatisfactory condition” against a 

high of 50 percent elsewhere in Pakistan.

The problem of ghost schools is a symptom of the high levels of corruption and bureaucratic 

obfuscation that plague Sindh. According to Transparency International, teachers collude with 

administrators to falsify school documentation to make it seem as if a school is functional in order 

to draw government funds.72 The problem is exacerbated by the government policy of building 

state schools on land donated by local communities. Often those who donate land do so to receive 

government funding without ever having to follow through on the commitment to build a school.
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Failings in Sindh’s public school system coupled with widespread poverty are contributing to 

the growing popularity of madrassahs throughout the province. The majority of new madrassahs 

in Sindh are managed by the religious political party JUI or the ASWJ, which by some estimates 

has a network of four thousand seminaries in the province, including Karachi,73 though in many 

cases, madrassahs fly the flags of both organizations. Banned sectarian groups such as the SSP 

and LeJ circulate militant and anti-Shia literature via madrassahs and organize public anti-Shia 

and pro-jihad gatherings in which young madrassah students are forced to participate.74 According to Sindh-based journalists, large-scale demonstrations to protest an attack against JUI Sindh 

general secretary Khalid Soomro in Larkana on March 31, 2014, were populated primarily by 

madrassah students, underscoring their growing numbers and street power.

Although madrassah enrollment does not necessarily have to lead to radicalization, Sindh 

observers directly link the growth of madrassahs to the creep of extremism in the province. A 

Sindh Home Ministry survey conducted in July 2013 identified six hundred madrassahs that it 

termed dangerous based on the institutions’ role in radicalization of students and militant recruitment.75 The majority of these madrassahs are in Karachi, but a growing number are in northern 

Sindh, where sectarian militant groups are increasingly active. These madrassahs give extremist 

groups greater visibility and access to local communities as well as convenient hubs for networking 

among themselves. By developing madrassahs in a province with a paucity of government schools, 

extremist groups are also positioning themselves as stand-ins for the state with the ability to deliver 

services, a strategy that served the groups well in the wake of the 2010 and 2011 floods. Moreover, by running madrassahs, representatives of extremist groups are able to position themselves 

as authorities within local communities, increasingly settling disputes and intervening in civic and 

financial affairs, a role that is likely to grow as the traditional feudal system declines.

In 2005, Sindh Governor Ishratul Ibad passed the Societies Registration (Sindh Amendment) Ordinance, making it mandatory for seminaries to register with the government. The 

amended law also made it compulsory for madrassahs to submit annual reports and audits of 

their financial accounts and outlawed teaching or publishing content of a sectarian or hateinciting nature.76 However, the law has had little effect. For example, in Khairpur district, the 

home base of Sindh Chief Minister Shah, ninety-three of 117 madrassahs are not registered. 

The Sindh government’s continuing failure to improve the public education system and regularize the seminary network is certain to fuel the spread of violent extremism—and especially 

sectarian strife—within the province.

Eroding Feudal System

Feudalism has existed in Sindh for centuries, and the exploitative system is largely to blame 

for the sharp economic disparities that differentiate the province from other parts of Pakistan. 

Sindh has the highest incidence of landlessness and tenancy and the lowest share of land ownership. Waderos holding more than one hundred acres make up only 1 percent of the province’s 

farmers and own 150 percent more land than farmers holding fewer than five acres, who make 

up 62 percent of the province’s farming population.77 Landowners have long been quasi-state 

entities, maintaining private security forces and jails and enforcing their writ over demarcated 

territories.78 In upper Sindh, inequalities in land ownership are overlaid with class hierarchies 

arising out of the ancient tribal system, especially among Sindhi-speaking Baloch tribes.

The gradual erosion of these systems is also driving conflict in Sindh and creating space for 

new entrants who can influence the local economy and security, such as criminal groups and 

By running madrassahs, 

representatives of extremist 

groups are able to position 

themselves as authorities 

within local communities.
USIP.ORG 19

CONFLICT DYNAMICS IN SINDH

violent extremist organizations. “The tribal structure is fading, but it is not being replaced by 

a viable option—a vacuum is emerging in its place,” a Kashmore-based landowner explained. 

“Other institutions like the police, judiciary, and patwaris [land record clerks] are politicized 

and corrupt, so where is one to go?” The answer to this question is increasingly the mosques and 

madrassahs managed by sectarian or violent extremist organizations.

Landowners and sharecroppers are not immune to the urbanizing trends present throughout the province. Landowners increasingly live in large cities such as Karachi and Hyderabad 

and visit their lands with dwindling frequency. Tenant farmers are also less loyal to feudal landowners and tend to seek out jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities in small towns and cities.79

The growing disconnect between landowners and their tenants means that they are less effective 

in their traditional roles as settlers of disputes and creditors. These roles are increasingly being 

played by clerics or religious leaders affiliated with the mosques and madrassahs mushrooming 

throughout the province. Religious and sectarian leaders offer prompt dispute resolution in 

matters ranging from water-sharing to marriage and law-enforcement issues. These leaders have 

growing local networks among politicians and police, which landowners are increasingly unable 

to match. They are also able to enhance their credibility by emphasizing the Islamic correctness 

of their decisions. “The wadero used to be at center stage [in Sindhi villages], but now it’s the 

mosque,” said a landowner from Dadu.

In addition to dispute resolution, individuals affiliated with extremist organizations and 

seminaries are increasingly serving as moneylenders. “Because of the stigma attached to bonded 

labor and the constant vilification of landowners by the vibrant Sindhi media, landowners are 

increasingly hesitant to act as moneylenders,” one landowner from Dadu explained.80 Clerics 

and representatives of banned organizations are increasingly playing the role instead, which was 

traditionally held by landowners or Hindu merchants. In Beto village in the Maher subdistrict 

of Dadu, for example, the imam of the local mosque emerged as the main moneylender and 

succeeded in driving away Hindu moneylenders. The mosque therefore has growing influence 

in the village, leading to mounting communal and sectarian tensions without addressing widespread problems of poverty and indebtedness.

As the landowners’ social position weakens, they are more likely to pander to the extremist groups that emerge in their areas as a way to enjoy proxy influence over locals. Landowners 

lacking authority also increasingly resort to the tactics of extremist groups to retain power; for 

example, according to Sindh-based journalists, landowners—particularly those who participate 

in politics—in areas where ASWJ has a growing presence stoke sectarian and communal tensions to undermine or pressurize rival politicians, landowners, or affluent Hindu businessmen, 

as described in the case of the Mehrs and Jatois.

Landowners and tribal chiefs with declining authority are also increasingly willing to collaborate with criminals to retain their local influence and maintain the upper hand in tribal 

warfare. As described, landowners give criminals free passage or sanctuary on their lands in 

exchange for bribes or a cut of the takings from smuggling or kidnapping for ransom. They also 

rely on criminals to intimidate and control sharecroppers and voters at election time. Criminal 

groups are also often tasked with enforcing the decisions reached by waderos and tribal chiefs 

when they resolve disputes. With more space to operate and access to the province’s feudal elites, 

criminal groups are emerging as independent and highly organized entities on which landowners and local politicians’ fortunes increasingly depend. Not surprisingly, the growing links 

between waderos and criminal groups has fueled criminality, especially kidnapping for ransom 

and smuggling, throughout the province.

Landowners and tribal chiefs 

with declining authority are 

also increasingly willing to 

collaborate with criminals to 

retain their local influence 

and maintain the upper 

hand in tribal warfare. 
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As with crime, the gradual erosion of the feudal system is exacerbating tribal warfare in upper Sindh. Since no tribal chief commands enough authority to bring an end to long-running 

disputes between tribes over issues such as land ownership, a woman’s ‘honor,’ or water sharing, 

tribal clashes continue endlessly, fueled by the ready availability of criminals to carry out abductions and murders. “There are no longer sardars [tribal chiefs] at the highest level who have the 

authority to put a stop to cycles of violence,” explained a landowner from Kashmore. “As the 

traditional system collapses, violence increases.”81 The failure to replace weakening feudal and 

tribal structures with viable democratic institutions, including an independent judiciary and 

police force, is likely to continue to drive violence in Sindh in the foreseeable future.

Poor Governance and Political Disillusionment

The politics of Sindh has long been dominated by the PPP and the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), though other parties have occasionally performed well, such as the sweep by 

the PMLN during the 1997 national elections. MQM dominates in the urban parts of Sindh 

with an Urdu-speaking muhajir population, primarily Karachi and Hyderabad, but has only 

a limited presence in other districts, such as Sukkur and Mirpurkhas. The PPP, meanwhile, 

dominates throughout the rest of the province. Sindhi nationalist sentiment runs high outside 

Karachi, but nationalist political parties such as the JSQM have not performed well at the 

polls. This is largely because, since the 1970s, the PPP has capitalized on nationalist sentiments 

and is recognized as the only political party representing the interests of Sindhis that is able to 

succeed in politics at the federal level.

The PPP has entrenched its position in Sindh by developing strong patronage networks 

among landowning elite and the provincial bureaucracy. Landowners who historically commanded the loyalty and obedience of sharecroppers serve as the party’s members of provincial 

and national assemblies, using their influence over sharecroppers, shrines, and local police to 

secure votes during elections. This patronage politics leads to governance failings and poor service 

delivery: “Waderos and sardaars control the bureaucracy and government services, such as the police, road construction, and electricity supply companies. That means when one landowner loses 

an election or becomes involved in a tribal feud, rivals take over, leading to a lack of continuity in 

service provision,” an apolitical Kashmore-based landowner explained, adding, “There is no space 

for institution-building in Sindh.” The political setup also leads to widespread corruption and 

rent-seeking at all levels. “Ninety percent of the people from my constituency who come to see 

me ask for illegal favors,” said Imran Leghari, the PPP National Assembly member from Dadu. 

“Everyone in Sindh wants a government job or a government handout.”82

In terms of the province’s conflict dynamics, the most relevant fallout of Sindh’s patronage 

politics is the politicization of the police force. “The majority of officers are political appointees, 

so they do nothing, or worse, engage in criminal activities,” said a high-ranking police official 

who served in the Hyderabad division.83 Federal intelligence agencies in September 2013 reported that more than ten thousand appointments had been made to the Sindh police force 

on a political basis since 2002. The Sindh Home Department, which oversees the police, was 

under the MQM’s control from 2002 to 2007 and the PPP’s from 2008 to 2013.84 Government officials from other departments, ranging from federal intelligence to media regulation, 

are regularly transferred by politicians into the Sindh police at high-ranking positions.85 Within 

the force, political appointees enjoy out-of-turn promotions and assignments in their preferred 

locations. Political appointees in Sindh’s police department exacerbate the province’s security 

Federal intelligence 

agencies in September 2013 

reported that more than 

ten thousand appointments 

had been made to the Sindh 

police force on a political 

basis since 2002.
USIP.ORG 21

CONFLICT DYNAMICS IN SINDH

problems because they either ignore or facilitate the attempts by politicians and landowners 

to cultivate ties with criminal and violent extremist groups. They also do not interfere in tribal 

clashes, enabling decades-old cycles of violence to persist. In many cases, the police are complicit 

in violence, either by aiding or receiving bribes from criminal groups or in their failure to crack 

down on hate-inciting activities by extremist groups.

The toll on governance and service delivery of Sindh’s patronage politics was highlighted in 

the wake of devastating flooding in the summers of 2010 and 2011. Sindh was the most severely 

affected province in both years: 6.7 million people in the province were affected by the floods in 

2010, and a survey by the Finance Ministry after the 2011 floods found that Sindh had suffered 

94 percent of the total damage of $1.8 billion.86 The provincial government, however, was not seen 

by Sindhis to be effective in providing immediate relief goods and rehabilitation services or longterm reconstruction. Ayesha Siddiqa has described how the state in Sindh is perceived as absent; 

her flood-affected interviewees repeatedly expressed disappointment with the state that they were 

relying on for help but found to be inadequate.87 This perception persists despite the fact that the 

PPP government launched and implemented new unconditional cash transfer programs in the 

form of Watan and Pakistan ATM cards to support flood victims, underscoring the extent to 

which governance failings and poor service delivery have affected state-citizen relations in Sindh.

While leading both the national and provincial governments between 2008 and 2013, the 

PPP also introduced a nationwide cash transfer program for women known as the Benazir 

Income Support Program. The government of Sindh under the PPP also published a proposed 

Priority Development Plan (2011–13), which called for major investments in energy projects, 

road infrastructure, education, and health; started construction on several dams; and initiated 

work on the M8 motorway, a highway linking Ratodero in Sindh with the Gwadar Port in 

Balochistan. However, the slow and uneven implementation of these projects and concerns 

about corruption in their implementation have fueled rather than allayed public grievances 

against poor governance. “No one expects anything from the PPP,” a Sindh-based journalist 

said, “but they vote for it because they have no options.”88

The PPP’s governance record in Sindh was further weakened between 2008 and 2013, when it 

led the federal coalition government as well as the Sindh provincial government, because the party 

focused on enhancing its control over Karachi rather than implementing development initiatives 

in Sindh’s rural areas. The schismatic politics of Sindh, whereby the MQM controls Karachi and 

PPP dominates the rest of the province, is a main driver of Sindhi nationalist sentiment because 

Sindhis feel marginalized in the provincial capital and resent not having access to its significant 

revenues. To address this, the PPP has been engaged since 2010 with the MQM in a tussle over 

local government laws. The PPP seeks to restore a commissionerate system in Sindh that would 

retain powers (including land revenue) at the provincial level, divide Karachi into five administrative units, and amalgamate Hyderabad into one, thus weakening MQM’s hold over these key urban centers. The MQM, meanwhile, supports devolving power from the provincial to the district 

level and unifying Karachi under a city-district government, which would facilitate single-party 

rule of the city.89 The political tussle has been accompanied by PPP’s efforts to increase its influence in Karachi by participating in the city’s turf wars over land and the takings from extortion and 

criminal rackets. This has not only worsened the security situation in Karachi but also led to further 

neglect of the rest of Sindh province and resultant disaffection with the state.

Growing frustration with poor service delivery and the erosion of public support for democratic forces is felt acutely in Sindh, long home to Pakistan’s secular politics and the base of the MRD 

movement against military rule in the 1980s. Disillusionment with the state and bureaucracy, 
22 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 104

and the PPP in particular, has created a vacuum now filled by extremist groups. “The main reason 

for the rise of religious parties and extremist groups in Sindh is the fact that political parties have 

increasingly been discredited or have scaled back their mass outreach programs,” said the Sindh 

political correspondent for a national newspaper.90 Following the 2010 and 2011 floods, in particular, public support for Jamaatud Dawa and other extremist groups has significantly increased 

because of their, rather than the state’s, prompt and effective delivery of relief goods. That the PPP 

and Sindh nationalist parties have not taken a strong stance against the creep of Islamist and sectarian militant groups in the province’s central and northern districts does not help the situation; 

in fact, journalists interviewed for this report felt the PPP’s failure to craft a preemptive counterterrorism strategy for Sindh was among its most serious governance failings. 

The involvement of the political elite in criminal activities and tribal clashes also fuels criminality and violence throughout the province and further erodes their credibility with locals. 

Moreover, the politicization of the police force has rendered it unprofessional and nonfunctional 

in many parts of the province, leading to greater insecurity. Given the lack of viable political 

alternatives, the PPP was able to win the majority of seats in Sindh in the May 2013 general 

elections and form the provincial government. But this continued political success without corresponding improvements in governance and service delivery is taking its toll on the province in 

the form of the growing appeal of violent extremist organizations and outlawed Sindhi nationalist and separatist groups. The failure to revitalize Sindh’s secular political culture and improve 

the transparency and accountability of government institutions, especially the police, is likely to 

drive conflict throughout the province in the coming years.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Unlike other parts of Pakistan, Sindh outside Karachi remains relatively stable and continues to 

have limited exposure to violent extremism. However, as described, the province is at a tipping 

point. Extremist groups are increasingly active in the central and northern districts, disrupting 

the pluralistic culture that has long defined the province. Other forms of conflict, including 

sectarian clashes, tribal feuds, and violence connected with organized crime, are currently the 

main security challenges in the province but, in the long run, are also likely to contribute to the 

spread of extremism.

The province is also affected by—and contributing to—the worsening security situation in 

Karachi, making it likely that the city’s significant problems will increasingly extend to the rest 

of the province. At this juncture, the Pakistan government, with support from international donors and other partners, needs to make a concerted effort to halt the conflict trends in Sindh to 

ensure that the province does not become a new base for militants in the same way that FATA 

and southern Punjab are. The government should also take advantage of the evolving situation 

in Sindh to develop and test strategies for managing the spread of extremism in the province 

and elsewhere in Pakistan. Addressing the security situation in Sindh is a vital component of 

stabilizing Karachi, which should be a top priority given the national economic ramifications 

of growing turbulence in the country’s financial capital. In this context, the government should 

prioritize the following six measures to manage conflict in Sindh:

• Ensure greater political representation for religious minorities, especially Hindus, to 

ensure that communities can voice their concerns and demand protection. Religious 

minorities have been the worst affected by the rise of violent extremist groups in 

Sindh and are likely to continue being the focal point of Islamist and sectarian efforts 

to mobilize support and drive recruitment. Increased political representation will 

Journalists interviewed for 

this report felt the PPP’s 

failure to craft a preemptive 

counterterrorism strategy for 

Sindh was among its most 

serious governance failings.
USIP.ORG 23

CONFLICT DYNAMICS IN SINDH

provide these minorities with greater access to law-enforcement agencies and provincial and federal resources that can be used to promote communal harmony.

• Strengthen law enforcement throughout Sindh, particularly by building the capacity of the 

police through improved resources, recruitment, and training that includes how to manage 

communal sensitivities and stem sectarianism. An independent and well-trained police 

force is key to tackling Sindh’s multifaceted challenges, particularly with regard to stemming extremism, criminality, and tribal warfare. Police with access to local communities 

are well placed to monitor the emergence of violent extremist groups and check their activities, such as the distribution of hate-inciting publications and graffiti. The regular rotation 

of high-ranking police officers could also help depoliticize the force and allow it to stop 

cycles of tribal violence through third-party interventions.

• Enhance the capacity of the legal system, including establishing mobile courts or other 

rapid mechanisms for dispute resolution. The lack of access to speedy justice is one of 

the main reasons that the feudal system has endured and that its gradual erosion is 

empowering clerics and the heads of madrassahs who increasingly play the role of 

arbiters. By reducing the backlog of cases in Sindh’s district courts and establishing 

responsive legal mechanisms at a hyperlocal level, the judiciary can provide an 

alternative forum for dispute resolution that will both check the powers of waderos 

and imams and promote the growth of democratic institutions in the province.

• Develop and implement education policies to address the problem of nonfunctional ghost 

schools and ensure government-funded schooling is accessible throughout the province. In the face of continuing urbanization, Sindh’s rural population is increasingly 

likely to seek educational opportunities for social advancement. At present, that 

demand is being met by seminaries, many of which are also hubs for militant recruitment. The growing pull of seminaries is likely to increase sectarianism in Sindh and 

drive cycles of violence unless government-funded schools with a secular and inclusive 

curriculum are available as viable options.

• Improve government accountability and transparency by supporting Sindh’s privately owned 

print and broadcast media through trainings for journalists and grants for investigative 

projects. Sindh’s vernacular media is among the most vibrant in the country, including 

well over a dozen established and regular print publications and several Sindhilanguage news and current affairs channels, including KTN, the only regional language channel to feature among the top ten Pakistani channels that receive television 

advertising expenditure. Sindhi media increasingly holds district and provincial-level 

politicians accountable, particularly with regard to poor service delivery, and regularly 

highlights violence against religious minorities. At a time of transition, the media is 

key to mapping changes in Sindh’s political and religious cultures and can support the 

functioning of the police and judiciary by highlighting injustices.

• Develop a job creation program focused on Sindh’s central and northern districts. Rapid 

urbanization is likely to lead to increased joblessness in Sindh, as elsewhere in 

Pakistan, in the coming years. Unemployed youth in Sindh are at risk of being 

recruited by violent extremist groups or joining criminal gangs. Moreover, urbanization itself is likely to drive conflict as new arrivals in the province’s towns and smaller 

cities compete for scarce resources, such as housing and water supply. Increased 

employment opportunities in central and northern Sindh will not only moderate the 

pace of urbanization but also check conflict.
24 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 104

In the coming years, growing access to media and urbanization are likely to increase awareness among Sindh’s rural population and fuel grievances against the state for its lack of service 

delivery. These grievances are likely to be fueled by the continued erosion of the wadero’s role 

in Sindhi society as well as a deteriorating security environment resulting from the entrenchment of violent extremist—and particularly sectarian—groups and organized criminal gangs. 

Unless the PPP dramatically improves its record for service delivery and development, Sindh 

is also likely to see the emergence of a more diverse political landscape with new entrants from 

among the Sindhi nationalist and religious political parties as well as national parties, such as 

the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf. After decades of PPP rule, this political flux is likely to increase 

instability in the short term and could introduce a new dimension of political violence to urban Sindh beyond Karachi, including Hyderabad and Sukkur. Without strong and consistent 

government interventions to check the spread of extremism and criminality and the further 

decline of democratic institutions, Sindh is likely to face growing instability and increasing 

levels of violence in the coming years.
USIP.ORG 25

CONFLICT DYNAMICS IN SINDH

Notes

1. United Nations Development Program and Government of Sindh (UNDP/GoS), Report on the Status of 

Millennium Development Goals: Sindh, October 2012, www.undp.org/content/dam/pakistan/docs/MDGs/

UNDP-PK-MDG-SindhReport-2012.pdf.

2. Arif Hasan, “Sindh Local Government: The Real Issues,” Express Tribune, January 10, 2012, http://tribune.

com.pk/story/319333/sindh-local-government-the-real-issues/.

3. Pakistan Hindu Council, “Populations of Hindus in the World,” www.pakistanhinducouncil.org/hindupopulation.asp.

4. Shweta Desai, “Pakistani Hindus ‘Unwelcome’ in India,” Al Jazeera, February 18, 2014, www.aljazeera.com/

indepth/features/2014/02/pakistani-hindus-unwelcome-india-201421063012210386.html.

5. For a complete discussion of violence in Karachi, see Huma Yusuf, “Conflict Dynamics in Karachi,” 

Peaceworks no. 82 (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, October 2012), www.usip.org/sites/default/

files/PW82-Conflict%20Dynamics%20in%20Karachi.pdf.

6. “Operation Cleanup: Rangers Arrest 80 Suspected Criminals in Karachi,” Express Tribune, March 6, 2014, 

http://tribune.com.pk/story/679571/operation-cleanup-rangers-arrest-80-suspected-criminals-in-karachi/.

7. “SHC orders transfer of 20 high profile cases from Karachi,” Dawn, February 15, 2014, www.dawn.com/

news/1087234/shc-orders-transfer-of-20-high-profile-cases-from-karachi.

8. Shabbir H. Kazmi, “Pakistan’s Energy Crisis,” The Diplomat, August 31, 2013, http://thediplomat.

com/2013/08/pakistans-energy-crisis/.

9. Government of Pakistan, “National Power Policy 2013,” August 2013, www.ppib.gov.pk/National%20

Power%20Policy%202013.pdf.

10. “Sindh Succeeds in Getting $1bn Foreign Investment for Wind Power Project,” Daily Times, April 24, 2014, 

www.dailytimes.com.pk/sindh/24-Apr-2014 sindh-succeeds-in-getting-1bn-foreign-investment-for-windpower-project.

11. Sindh Board of Investment, “Sindh: The Land of Endless Opportunities,” www.sbi.gos.pk/Sindh-at-aglance.php.

12. “Energy Crisis Inflicting Two Percent Loss on GDP Growth Annually,” Business Recorder, March 30, 

2014, www.brecorder.com/fuel-a-energy/630:/1167885:energy-crisis-inflicting-two-percent-loss-on-gdpgrowth-annually/?date=2014-03-30.

13. Yudhvir Rana, “More than 50 Hindu Families Migrate to India Every Month: Pakistan Hindu Council,” 

Times of India, August 21, 2012, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/More-than-50-Hindu-familiesmigrate-to-India-every-month-Pakistan-Hindu-Council/articleshow/15587247.cms.

14. Jacob N. Shapiro, C. Christine Fair, and Rasul Bakhsh Rais, “Political Violence in Pakistan 1988-2010: 

Patterns and Trends,” International Growth Center Working Paper, February 2012, www.theigc.org/wpcontent/uploads/2014/09/Rais-Et-Al-2012-Working-Paper.pdf.

15. South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), “Sindh Assessment 2014,” www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/sindh/index.html.

16. Waseem Shamsi, “Militant Attack ISI Offices in Sukkur,” Dawn, July 25, 2013, www.dawn.com/

news/1031654/militants-attack-isi-offices-in-sukkur.

17. “Karachi-Like Terrorism Must Not Hit Other Parts of Sindh, Qaim Tells Police,” Dawn, February 24, 2014, 

www.dawn.com/news/1088976/karachi-like-terrorism-must-not-hit-other-parts-of-sindh-qaim-tells-police.

18. SATP, “Sindh Assessment 2014.”

19. “Karachi Airport Attack: Police Release Sketch of ‘Mastermind’,” Dawn, July 11, 2014, www.dawn.com/

news/1118557.

20. Aamir Majeed, “Sindhi Taliban’s Emergence Looms Large,” Pakistan Observer, September 13, 2014, http://

pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=252219.

21. Tariq Pervez, e-mail interview, January 14, 2014.

22. Zia Ur Rehman, “Militant Islam on Rise in Sindh,” Central Asia Online, March 18, 2011, http://centralasiaonline.com/en_GB/articles/caii/features/pakistan/main/2011/03/18/feature-01.

23. Noah Shachtman, “Is This the Secret U.S. Drone Base in Saudi Arabia?” Wired.com, February 7, 2013, 

www.wired.com/2013/02/secret-drone-base-2/.

24. Interviews with Dadu-based landowner, Karachi, March 26, 2014; Kashmore-based landowner, March 4, 

2014; journalist covering Sindh for international news organization, March 1, 2014. 

25. UNDP/GoS, Report on the Status.

26. Matthew Green and Fahran Bokhari, “Fears of Islamist Charity Exploiting Flood,” Financial Times, August 

6, 2010, www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c60febf4-a17b-11df-9656-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2zcO1WjIv.

27. Saba Imtiaz, “JuD Includes Religious Lessons With Flood Relief,” Express Tribune, October 26, 2011, 

http://tribune.com.pk/story/282160/flood-relief-camps-the-fine-line-between-banned-and-beneficent/.

28. Interview with senior police official, Karachi, March 6, 2014.
26 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 104

29. Saba Imtiaz and Declan Walsh, “Extremists Make Inroads in Pakistan’s Diverse South,” New York Times, 

July 15, 2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/world/asia/militants-in-pakistan-make-inroads-in-thediverse-and-tolerant-south.html?_r=0.

30. Sarfaraz Memon, “Sectarian Clash: At Least 10 Injured in Khairpur Crossfire,” Express Tribune, April 27, 

2012, http://tribune.com.pk/story/370824/sectarian-clash-at-least-6-injured-in-khairpur-crossfire/. 

31. Sarfaraz Memon, “Violence: Sectarian Clash Leaves Khairpur a Ghost Town,” Express Tribune, December 

30, 2011, http://tribune.com.pk/story/313817/violence-sectarian-clash-leaves-khairpur-a-ghost-town/.

32. “Sectarian Tension Hits Khairpur,” Dawn, April 8, 2014, www.dawn.com/news/1098389/sectariantension-hits-khairpur.

33. Mansoor Mirani, “Khairpur Shut After ‘Sectarian’ Killing,” Dawn, January 4, 2014, www.dawn.com/

news/1078174/khairpur-shut-after-sectarian-killing.

34. Nasir Shah, interview, Karachi, May 21, 2014. 

35. Interview with Sindh political correspondent for national newspaper, Karachi, March 28, 2014.

36. Zia Ur Rehman, “Sindh Devises Strategy to Protect Shrines, Sufi Personalities,” Central Asia Online, 

March 7, 2013, http://centralasiaonline.com/en_GB/articles/caii/features/pakistan/main/2013/03/07/

feature-01.

37. “Agencies Warn of Attacks on Sindh Shrines,” Pak Observer, February 13, 2014, http://pakobserver.

net/201402/13/detailnews.asp?id=233390

38. Interview, with journalist covering Sindh, March 1, 2014.

39. Zahid Gishkori, “Hindu Girls Being Forcibly Kept in Sindh Madrassas,” Express Tribune, March 15, 2012, 

http://tribune.com.pk/story/350431/hindu-girls-being-forcibly-kept-in-sindh-madrassas/.

40. Marvi Sirmed, “Rinkle Kumari: A Test Case for Jinnah’s Pakistan,” Friday Times, May 25, 2012, www.

thefridaytimes.com/beta3/tft/article.php?issue=20120525&page=6.

41. “Partial Strike in Sindh Over Alleged Quran Desecration,” Dawn, March 17, 2014, www.dawn.com/

news/1093544/partial-strike-in-sindh-over-alleged-quran-desecration. 

42. Syed Raza Hassan, “Religious Tension in Pakistan as Muslims Dig up Hindu Grave,” Reuters, October 8, 

2013, www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/08/us-pakistan-hindus-grave-idUSBRE9970EF20131008.

43. Khatau Mal, telephone interview, Karachi, May 22, 2014.

44. Narayan Bareth, “Pakistani Hindus Say Will Not Return From India Visit,” BBC News Online, September 

10, 2012, www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-19540774.

45. Imtiaz and Walsh, “Extremists Make Inroads.”

46. Interview with Kashmore-based landowner, March 4, 2014. 

47. Interview with Dadu-based landowner, March 26, 2014.

48. Saqib Nasir, “Kidnapping For Ransom Cases in Karachi Break a 10-Year Record,” Express Tribune, 

December 27, 2013, http://tribune.com.pk/story/651253/kidnapping-for-ransom-cases-in-karachi-breaka-10-year-record/.

49. InpaperMagazine, “A Community Held Ransom,” Dawn, November 18, 2012, www.dawn.com/

news/764890/a-community-held-ransom.

50. Amar Guriro, “Hindus Suffering Brunt of Child Kidnappings,” Pakistan Today, January 14, 2011, www.

pakistantoday.com.pk/2011/01/14/city/karachi/hindus-suffering-brunt-of-child-kidnappings/.

51. “832 Persons Die in Sindh Tribal Feuds,” Pakistan Observer, February 3, 2013, http://pakobserver.

net/201302/03/detailnews.asp?id=194286.

52. M. B. Kalhoro, “Tribal Feuds in Larkana Spiralling Out of control,” Dawn, July 12, 2013, www.dawn.com/

news/1028315/tribal-feuds-in-larkana-spiralling-out-of-control.

53. “772 Persons Killed in Tribal Feuds in Eight Upper Sindh Districts During Last Three Years,” One Pakistan 

News, May 2012, http://pakistan.onepakistan.com.pk/news/city/karachi/137250-772-persons-killed-intribal-feuds-in-eight-upper-sindh-districts-during-last-three-years.html.

54. Adeel Khan, “Pakistan’s Sindhi Ethnic Nationalism: Migration, Marginalization, and the Threat of 

‘Indianization’,” Asian Survey 42, no. 2 (March/April 2002): 221.

55. Nasir Shah, interview, May 21, 2014.

56. Waseem Shamsi, “Over 50,000 Stranded Near Kashmore on Way to Dera Bugti,” Dawn, January 20, 2014, 

www.dawn.com/news/1081347.

57. Pak Institute of Peace Studies, Pakistan Security Report 2012, Islamabad, January 2013. 

58. “Blasts Rock Sindh Cities, Towns,” Dawn, January 25, 2014, www.dawn.com/news/1082498/blastsrock-sindh-cities-towns.

59. Interview with Kashmore-based landowner, March 4, 2014.

60. Imdad Soomro, “Sindh Govt Orders Police to Crack Down on Nationalists,” The News, December 2, 2013, 

www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-2-217663-Sindh-govt-orders-police-to-crack-down-on-nationalists.
USIP.ORG 27

CONFLICT DYNAMICS IN SINDH

61. Interview with Sindh political correspondent, March 28, 2014.

62. Naziha Syed Ali, “Playing a Dangerous Game in Kech,” Dawn, April 18, 2014, www.dawn.com/

news/1100695/playing-a-dangerous-game-in-kech-ii.

63. Stefan SchÜtte and Hermann Kreutzmann, “Social Vulnerability in Sindh: Recent Floods as Amplifiers of 

Social Crisis in Pakistan,” International Quarterly for Asian Studies 43, no. 3/4 (November 2012): 203.

64. Salam Dharejo, “Thar Crisis: Living a Nightmare,” Newsline, April 19, 2014, www.newslinemagazine.

com/2014/04/thar-crisis-living-a-nightmare/.

65. Naseer Memon, “Unemployment in Rural Sindh,” Dawn, May 5, 2008, www.dawn.com/news/301270/

unemployment-in-rural-sindh.

66. Allah Bux Arisar, “No Respite From Thar Drought as 9 More Infants Starve to Death,”Dawn, November 

18, 2014, www.dawn.com/news/1145302 

67. Graeme Blair, C. Christine Fair, Neil Malhotra, and Jacob N. Shapiro, “Poverty and Support for Militant 

Politics: Evidence from Pakistan,” American Journal of Political Science 57, no. 1 (2013): 30–48. 

68. Hasan, “Sindh Local Government.”

69. UNDP/GoS, Report on the Status. 

70. Ibid.

71. Alif Ailaan, “Fact Sheet: The State of Education in Sindh,” www.alifailaan.pk.

72. “These ‘Ghost’ Schools Are Not for Children,” Independent European Daily Express, November 6, 2013, 

www.iede.co.uk/news/2013_3384/these-%E2%80%98ghost%E2%80%99-schools-are-not-children.

73. Imtiaz and Walsh, “Extremists Make Inroads.”

74. Rehman, “Militant Islam on Rise in Sindh.”

75. Sirmed, “Rinkle Kumari.”

76. Ali K. Chishti, “The Madrassa Networks of Sindh,” Friday Times, July 12, 2013, www.thefridaytimes.com/

beta3/tft/article.php?issue=20130712&page=5.

77. InpaperMagazine, “Poverty in Rural Sindh,” Dawn, April 22, 2013, www.dawn.com/news/1024852/

poverty-in-rural-sindh.

78. Anas Malik, Political Survival in Pakistan: Beyond Ideology (New York: Routledge, 2011), 64. 

79. Arif Hasan, “The Changing Sociology of Rural Sindh,” Express Tribune, August 27, 2012, http://tribune.

com.pk/story/426885/the-changing-sociology-of-rural-sindh/.

80. Interview with Dadu-based landowner, March 26, 2014.

81. Interview with Kashmore-based landowner, March 4, 2014.

82. Imran Leghari, interview, Karachi, April 3, 2014

83. Interview with senior police official, March 6, 2014. 

84. Khawar Ghumman, “Political Appointees in Police: Magnitude Surprised Nawaz,” Dawn, September 12, 

2013, www.dawn.com/news/1042301.

85. Ansar Abbasi, “Politicized Police Cause of Total Collapse in Sindh,” Pakistan Herald, March 30, 2012, 

www.pakistanherald.com/articles/politicised-police-cause-of-total-collapse-in-sindh-2996.

86. UNDP/GoS, Report on the Status.

87. Ayesha Siddiqa, “The Emerging Social Contract: State-Citizen Interaction after the Floods of 2010 and 

2011 in Southern Sindh, Pakistan,” IDS Bulletin 44 no. 3 (May 2013).

88. Interview with journalist covering Sindh, March 1, 2014. 

89. For more information, see Yusuf, “Conflict Dynamics of Karachi.”

90. Interview with Sindh political correspondent, March 28, 2014. 

 5

About the Institute

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan 

institution established and funded by Congress. Its goals are to 

help prevent and resolve violent conflicts, promote postconflict 

peacebuilding, and increase conflict-management tools, capacity, and 

intellectual capital worldwide. The Institute does this by empowering 

others with knowledge, skills, and resources, as well as by its direct 

involvement in conflict zones around the globe.

Chairman of the Board: Steven J. Hadley

Vice Chairman: George E. Moose

Acting President: William B. Taylor

Chief Financial Officer: Michael Graham

Board of Directors

Stephen J. Hadley, (Chair), Principal, RiceHadleyGates, LLC, Washington, 

D.C.• George E. Moose (Vice Chair), Adjunct Professor of Practice, The 

George Washington University, Washington, D.C. • Judy Ansley, Former 

Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor under 

George W. Bush, Washington, D.C. • Eric Edelman, Hertog Distinguished 

Practitioner in Residence, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced 

International Studies, Washington, D.C. • Joseph Eldridge, University 

Chaplain and Senior Adjunct Professorial Lecturer, School of International 

Service, American University • Kerry Kennedy, President, Robert F. 

Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, Washington, D.C. • Ikram 

U. Khan, President, Quality Care Consultants, LLC, Las Vegas, Nev. • 

Stephen D. Krasner, Graham H. Stuart Professor of International 

Relations, Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif. • John A. Lancaster, 

Former Executive Director, International Council on Independent Living, 

Potsdam, N.Y. • Jeremy A. Rabkin, Professor of Law, George Mason 

University, Fairfax, Va. • J. Robinson West, Chairman, PFC Energy, 

Washington, D.C. • Nancy Zirkin, Executive Vice President, Leadership 

Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Washington, D.C.

Members Ex Officio

John Kerry, Secretary of State • Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Defense 

• Gregg F. Martin, Major General, U.S. Army; President, National 

Defense University • William B. Taylor, Acting President, 

United States Institute of Peace (nonvoting)
2 Looking for Justice

Although still relatively stable in comparison with the rest 

of Pakistan, Sindh Province is at a tipping point. Extremist 

groups, particularly anti-Shia sectarian organizations, are 

increasingly active, and religious minorities that have inhabited the province for centuries increasingly feel compelled 

to migrate to secure their safety. Political elites are involved 

in criminal activities and law enforcement is politicized, 

unprofessional, and in many areas nonfunctional. Tribal 

clashes fuel criminality and violence. This report analyzes 

these challenges and outlines steps the government might 

take to manage the growing incidence of conflict in Sindh 

and ensure that the province—the country’s second 

largest—does not become a new base for militants, as 

FATA and southern Punjab currently are. Recognizing that 

Sindh is at a crucial juncture, this report aims to highlight 

the factors that enable violent extremism to flourish as 

well as opportunities to stem its spread. 

Of Related Interest 

■ Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in South Asia: Through a Peacebuilding 

Lens edited by Moeed Yusuf (USIP Press, 2014)

■ Pakistan’s Resurgent Sectarian War by Arif Rafiq (Peace Brief, November 

2014)

■ Religious Authority and the Promotion of Sectarian Tolerance in Pakistan by 

Michael Kalin and Niloufer Siddiqui (Special Report, October 2014)

■ Youth Radicalization in Pakistan by Raheem ul Haque (Peace Brief, 

February 2014)

■ Mapping Conflict Trends in Pakistan by Saira Yamin and Salma Malik 

(Peaceworks, February 2014)

■ Pakistan and the Narratives of Extremism by Amil Khan (Special Report, 

March 2013)

■ Conflict Dynamics in Karachi by Huma Yusuf (Peaceworks, October 2012)

PEACEWORKS • JANUARY 2015 • NO. 104

UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE • 2301 CONSTITUTION AVE., NW • WASHINGTON, DC 20037 • USIP.ORG 

@ usip