The Fire at Bahria Town Karachi
By: Wasio Ali Khan Abbasi
Tags: Sindhi Nationalist, Pakistan, Bahria Town, Fire, Protest

A vandalism event that took years to culminate

Bahria Town and Malik Riaz’s names are one of the most curious ones in Pakistan. They are curious because no one take these names publicly unless it is to praise them. The incident on June 6 2021, where a sit-in protest was taking place in front of Bahria Town Gate by various groups, resulted in vandalism that included burning of the iconic gate, torching of commercial avenues, vehicles, offices, and one or more buildings. The criminal silence of media on the entire saga was clearly felt by everyone, as distorted stories came through different social media pipelines.

The day started as Sundays do … slow and sleepy. With the difference that thousands of people were gathering in front of Bahria Town gate from all over Sindh province for protest. Within a 3km stretch, people were packed with a strong squad of police between the protestors and the gate. Additional blockades were placed to keep people from entering the premises. The protest leaders, many of them from Sindhi nationalist parties, had assured police they only want to protest and not enter the premises or cause any violence.

Suddenly, when speeches began, a group of protestors managed to break through the blockade and enter Bahria Town, initiating vandalism. Scattered videos emerge within one hour of the incident, recorded by people involved in vandalism, how they were destroying property.

For me, these were horrible sights. As a Sindhi myself, and familiar with some of the history of nationalist parties and their followers, I felt angry at them for resorting to violence despite assurance nothing of this sort would be done.

It wasn’t until I saw this protest video that I felt something was not right.

Protest in Bahria Town Karachi gone wrong — YouTube

Looking at the recent Israel and Palestinian conflict via social media, I discovered first hand that the videos made by third parties are first to reach and propagate to masses than from those actually involved. An incident in Canada where Palestinian protesting group was seen beating an old man and allegedly sexually assaulting a Jewish girl (as claimed by a Twitter handle). Later another video emerged of that incident where the Palestinians were seen to be getting surrounded by baton wielding group of men (of all ages) and provoking the unarmed Palestinians. The fight that followed saw the Palestinian youth fighting with their buckles against sticks and batons. The same old man that was seen beaten in the first video, not only had a baton that he lost during the fight but apparently had pulled a knife before fleeing. With the emergence of the incident video up close, the twitter handle claiming sexual assault went private to hide all its tweets.

With this fresh in mind, when I saw this protest video on Facebook, it made no sense. Apart from scattered bricks, there was no damage to the structure. The protestors are beating a metallic flap repeatedly and throwing bricks on the roof half-heartedly. No one is hitting Bahria Town symbols that are all around. No bricks appear dislodged from walkway. No ceramic damage on the walls. The protestors were clearly seen carrying hammering tools with which they broke offices, then why weren’t they used here?

These weren’t protestors … they were just there enjoying themselves.

Then videos began to emerge of nationalist parties where they said they don’t know who the people were that entered the premises, the protestors have nothing to do with them, and those who are entering the premises should be stopped.

https://twitter.com/MushkIllahi/status/1401962801388830727?s=19

In the above video, main organizer of Sindh Action Committee is clearly announcing the people entering the premises and getting involved in vandalism has nothing to do with the protestors or the organizers of the protest.

This is another video where the same question is being repeated, that how these unknown people that no one had any affiliation with, easily entered and started vandalism despite heavy police contingent blocking the gate and Bahria’s own security on standby.

When no one has affiliation with these people, the organizers kept saying please stop these people they are not from us, the refusal of police to get involved to stop vandalism is perplexing.

https://twitter.com/SajjadA79300086/status/1401544540087930886?s=19

Here, one participant is pointing out that miscreants came from huts nearby on motorbikes, set things on fire and went back without any action taken by law enforcements in the area, while all organizers were on the other side of the this area.

https://twitter.com/Sangrisaeed/status/1401534738486157316?s=19

Videos like these are available online, mostly in native Sindhi, where participants are pointing out those engaged in vandalism.

The vandalizing group, numbering to 100 or so from the looks of it, torched vehicles, offices, broke property, and senselessly strolled the underpass beating metal flaps and throwing bricks with no visible target. They were allowed to do that without any problem.

What changed was fire on the gate.

Bahria Town Karachi gate on fire (picture taken from Twitter)

This is very odd fire. This is a metallic structure with fiber sheet. There is no way a group of protestors can torch it without significant quantity of chemicals to start and maintain the fire. What is even more confusing is how the fire is traveling vertically rather than horizontally, as if it is being guided. How did a group of protestors carried such a chemical through police blockade is completely unknown. There is no video of them actually torching the structure, and no footage released by Bahria Town (if there were any CCTV cameras installed at the gate) of how the fire was set. It was this fire that finally brought police to action …

But it took action against the people that were sitting in front of the gate. Tear Gas was shelled, protestors were baton charged … while those vandalizing in BTK remained untouched and unconcerned.

Interestingly enough, all the property that was destroyed (vehicles, commercial shops/eateries, office furniture) pretty much falls into insured category. If any of the destroyed stuff was not insured by the owner, that’s a different story, but this was a curious pattern that mostly those items were being destroyed where damages could be claimed via insurance (if they were insured).

All of this, and the fact that these property damages videos emerged and spread within an hour of it happening, with no clear source of origin, set off red flags. It is highly irregular that someone who is breaking and entering an office in Bahria Town Karachi, hammering away, plundering, torching and completely destroying it, would immediately viral the video. Facebook Groups like Halaat Updates had several members post these videos, leading to racial slurs against the protestors (several members twisted this into Muhajir vs Sindhi narrative that is completely untrue and total bullcrap). But none of those posted videos have origin, rather they were shared by those members by uploading it themselves.

How did they get their hands on these videos when there is no original uploader on Facebook or Twitter? What is the source of the spread? This appears to be completely unknown (without any forensic investigation to trace the origin of these videos) and even surprisingly, the on-ground video is first to spread and go viral instead of third party videos that are usually recording from afar.

At no point do I support this vandalism, and at no point I am accusing any entity of fraud or deception. All I am doing is pointing out patterns based on information from existing sources. Bahria Town has a dark past, whether one likes to acknowledge it or not, that’s a different story. Due to influence on media, Bahria Town’s antics are largely hidden from the masses, but social media is a different beast. Here is a small preview of the time when this Bahria Town Karachi project was announced (Hint: It was announced and millions were collected even before Bahria Town had a location)

Following is a short read of the some of the disturbing scams Bahria Town has been involved in. The above image is taken from the same source.

Greed Unlimited: Bahria Town Karachi — Hot takes, Served cold (substack.com)

Following is Dawn’s coverage of Bahria Town’s greed.

Bahria Town Karachi: Greed unlimited — Pakistan — DAWN.COM

Following is the recent incident that eventually led to this protest.

‘They fired at everyone’: peril of Pakistani villagers protesting giant luxury estate | Global development | The Guardian

Here is an analysis of Bahria Town’s control over media and how/why media remained silent on the protests (including this incident).

Even though Malik Riaz cannot influence social media the way it does mainstream media, but there is always a way to influence it through paid people. We kept seeing that on Facebook and Twitter where ‘outraged’ individuals spoke about how some people were ‘anti-development’ and how the ‘terrorists’ ended up ‘terrorizing’ folks in the name of peaceful protests (one look at their profile and it was confirmed that they were either trolls, ideologues, or just those who get paid by taking part in campaigns). There were paid Twitter campaigns going on as well.

Received from WhatsApp (source and veracity unknown)

I will not be covering the ethnic slurs and angles that many people spun for anti-Sindhi and pro-Matruka Sindh narrative. I find them despicable to spread such blatantly toxic narrative when people protesting for their right to live are being silenced.

To conclude, what was announced as peaceful sit-in has been turned controversial with vandalism incident (which is not only highly irregular in nature, but its virality and publicity is extremely unusual). If Bahria Town’s history is any indicative, pretty soon there were be something like ‘Bahria Defense Force’ to save the settlement against those who wish to destroy it … the indigenous people whose land was illegally encroached upon and continued to be encroached despite Supreme Court’s orders.