Karachi, Pakistan’s buzzing port city, is a hub of beaches, malls, restaurants — and the odd shooting range where an army of private security guards train to protect the well-heeled.
As growing insecurity grips the nation, with the military battling Taliban rebels in swathes of the northwest, deadly bombs hitting key cities and crime on the rise, the security industry in quietly booming.
Rashid Malik, who owns the firm Security 2000, has his men carry out target practice in the basement of a bungalow in an upscale Karachi neighborhood, but even with 10,000 employees, he is struggling to keep up with demand.
“I have to turn down many requests from people and businesses because I still have not enough capacity to provide security to all the people,” said Malik, a retired army brigadier.
“After the army and police, private security guards are the third-largest force in Pakistan — we are just a few years away from outnumbering the police force in the country,” he said.
There are 600 security firms in Pakistan, according to figures from the All Pakistan Security Agencies Association (APSAA), with 200 of them operating in Karachi, protecting businesses big and small, as well as the homes of wealthy clients.
Karachi — Pakistan’s biggest city with a population of about 14 million — was once known as the City of Lights and is the country’s economic engine, but has been plagued by sectarian tensions for years.
Clashes between Pashtun and Urdu-speaking groups left at least 34 people dead in April.
Now, the threat of terrorism also grips the city, with attacks by Islamist extremists gathering pace after US-led forces ousted the Taliban regime from Afghanistan in late 2001. More than 1,800 people in Pakistan have been killed in less than two years in attacks linked to Taliban and other extremist groups, and Karachi has not been spared.
“Our business witnessed huge prospects after the 9/11 attacks,” said Malik, who also heads the APSAA.
The city is also seeing rising crime, including robberies and kidnappings.
“There is a serious law and order situation in the whole country, which has left us with no other option but to buy security to secure our lives and our huge investments,” said Mohammad Ali, a steel importer.
For 170 million Pakistanis, there is just a 383,000-strong police force. In Sindh that figure is 99,000 police, while there are 100,000 security guards patrolling the streets of Karachi and the rest of the province.
Most officers are ill-trained, poorly educated and badly paid — a regular constable’s monthly salary is just US$100, and his family receives a lump sum of US$6,000 if he is killed in the line of duty.
Sociologist Fateh Mohammad Burfat said that in uncertain times, residents take comfort from the presence of uniformed security guards standing on street corners of the cosmopolitan city.
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