Karachi — a city of teeming millions lost to neglect |
Karachi buried another child recently. A five-year-old boy, full of life, curiosity, and innocence, slipped into an open manhole near NIPA — a manhole that should never have been open in the first place, a hazard that should never exist in a city where human lives matter. His small body disappeared into darkness, but the darkness that swallowed him is nothing compared to the darkness that has already taken hold of Karachi’s civic governance.
This was not just an accident. This was the predictable, preventable, unforgivable result of a city abandoned by those responsible for running it.
For years, Karachi has been sinking — not into water or sewage, but into a deep pit of administrative abandonment. The institutions meant to protect the people in this ‘metropolitan city’ — KMC, KWSC, the Local Government Department — have become hollow names, stripped of purpose, stripped of duty. Their absence is visible on every road, every footpath, every gutter, every broken streetlight, every collapsed pavement. And now, their absence has taken another child. When to end, don’t........