According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, in 2018 in Sindh alone, there were 1308 murders, 1590 attempts of murder and 3167 abductions and these numbers are only the reported ones. Due to the corruption in the police force and judiciary system, most of the cases go unreported, which means that the actual numbers are not available to the common man. Since Karachi is a huge metropolitan city, it is safe to assume that it contributes quite a lot to the numbers mentioned above.

Karachi has always been called the city of lights, but is it really so? The recent case of Dua
Mangi’s case screams otherwise. So how do people forget that it is actually a city of crime, hatred, fear, and treachery? It is not that it was always like that, initially, people reacted in the appropriate manner which was fear, constant and prolonged surveillance, evasion of shady places, etc. but then there came a time when it all stopped but why? The easiest answer is that the public is desensitized, but how did that take place and what is it?

Desensitization is defined as “a reduction in emotional or physical reactivity to stimuli that is achieved by such means as de-conditioning techniques.” Deconditioning conditions in this respect refer to the constant exposure that our public receives through different outlets whether it is through media of different kinds, word of mouth, close and personal experiences, etc. It takes place not only because of the consistent horrific events that take place, but also because people use it as a method of adaptation. It is said that it is non-associative learning that makes people produce none or minimum responses to the violence of different kinds, but it happens gradually.

One possible reason that people are quick to forget what happened in the Dua Mangi case was because of the hate response. She was a victim blamed so brutally that people attacked her clothing, way of lifestyle, choice of friends, freedom to roam around, parents and family members, etc. On many occasions, she was “slut-shamed” simply for being a girl and being abducted in the dreadful city of Karachi. One consequence of desensitization is the lack of sympathy towards the victim of the crime.

It was not long ago when another young woman named Bisma Saleem was kidnapped back in May 2019 right outside of her house by four unidentified armed men. Until a certain time, there was public and media outrage and the streets deserted for some days, but then the people pushed it to the back of their minds and went about their lives. The same thing happened to a little girl named Ayesha that was kidnapped from Gulistan-e-Jauhar in April but people soon forgot about that too.

There is a small fraction of people that try to keep protesting and awareness campaigns against women going for some time, but either they lose heart after a while or are quietened down by powerful people. The police force is something to fear as they do not protect the public, but terrorize and the case of “Waseem the Beater” is just one example of it. Organized crime in Karachi is the reason that many corrupt rich people are never apprehended for their heinous crimes.

Hassan Abbas, an expert on Pakistani police force said, “The chaos in Karachi provides criminal gangs with the cover they need to operate,” said Abbas. “Corruption provides an incentive to continue that chaos.“

In July 2010, a man named Allah Rakha lost his son because the police fired at him. Was he a criminal? According to the father and eyewitnesses, he was not, nor was he displaying any violent or criminal act. But the police force’s cover story is that they were firing at “suspected criminals” and it was justified. Even after all these years, Allah Rakha never got justice for watching his son getting brutally murdered by the police right in front of his eyes. Allah Rakha commented distraughtly, “There are many other witnesses to his killing… Not only have the police killed my son, but they have also sullied his name by making it seem as if he was a criminal. He was not a criminal.” It is just one of the many cases that the Pakistani public has forgotten.

It is astounding that Pakistani public seemingly moves on so quickly when they have mean world syndrome, but a possible cause behind it could be that people do not have much faith in the corrupt political and judicial system which is why they have accepted living their lives in a perilous manner and due to desensitization, the span and duration of attention on such events has decreased for everyone.

According to a study conducted, adolescents that were exposed to violence later in life depended on the tendencies of committing more violent acts. No matter what the causes behind it, there is no doubt that the people of Pakistan are less sympathetic and more forgetful of criminal activities. The places that witness horrific crimes are surely abandoned, but not for long, people throng, move around and mill around those same spots as if nothing ever happened and the cycle of violence and people’s lack of humanity continues.