Karachi Cop

People & Power goes behind the scenes with a famous super cop in Pakistan's fastest-growing and most lawless city.


Karachi is Pakistan’s financial and commercial capital; a vast, sprawling metropolis of more than 20 million people, which generates almost a quarter of the country’s wealth.

Yet in recent years it has also been riven by bitter political and sectarian tensions, it has been undermined by organised crime, and has become a prime target for Taliban insurgents. Things have become so bad that some residents fear that it is now only a few steps away from falling into complete anarchy.

The city’s police are fighting desperately to prevent that from happening and, in combination with the army and the country’s intelligence agencies, are taking the fight to their enemies with an aggressive strategy of armed raids and arrests.

But as these tactics draw bloody reprisals and the death toll on both sides rises, the success or failure of Operation Karachi, as it is known, now hangs in the balance.