[INTRO PLAYING]
[STREET RIOT AND YELLING IN URDU]
SUROOSH ALVI: All right.
This is Basim.
BASIM USMANI: This is Suroosh.
SUROOSH ALVI: This is The Vice Guide to Karachi.
BASIM USMANI: Oh, shit.
[MUSIC PLAYING AND YELLING IN URDU]
SUROOSH ALVI: Karachi is the biggest and fastest growing
city in Pakistan.
And with a population of around 18 million people, it's
one of the biggest in the world.
It is also the country's financial capital.
And is considered the most educated and
diverse city in Pakistan.
However, it is also the most violent.
[MUSIC PLAYING AND YELLING IN URDU]
SUROOSH ALVI: It's true.
We hear about violence in Pakistan all the time.
At least when it comes to the seemingly never ending war
against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
But in 2011, more than three times as many people were
killed in Karachi than the number of people killed in
American drone strikes in the tribal areas.
Why does that matter?
Because Pakistan matters.
Whether you're an American worried about the extremists,
an Indian worried about the nukes, or an Afghan worried
about Pakistan's ambitions, basically, Pakistan is a
powder keg.
And Karachi is the detonator that could set it all off.
We wanted to explore the inner workings of this ultraviolent
metropolis and meet the players who make Karachi one
of the craziest cities on earth.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TARGET KILLER: [SPEAKING URDU]
UZAIR BALOCH: [SPEAKING URDU]
CHAUDRY ASLAM: [SPEAKING URDU]
SUROOSH ALVI: Will anyone shoot at us?
TARIQ MALIK: Yeah.
SUROOSH ALVI: Will they shoot?
TARIQ MALIK: Yeah.
Yeah, everybody there.
BASIM USMANI: [SPEAKING URDU]
DRIVER: [SPEAKING URDU]
BASIM USMANI: [SPEAKING URDU]
DRIVER: [SPEAKING URDU]
BASIM USMANI: Fuck yeah.
We've got a escort from the fucking most
dangerous people there.
SUROOSH ALVI: Lyari is considered a no-go area by
most people.
It's Karachi's most densely populated slum and is
notorious for it's thriving drug and gambling dens.
Hardly a day goes by without a headline detailing some kind
of horrific violence that occurred there the day before.
And every so often, like the night we chose to visit, the
police decide to conduct an operation against it's most
famous residents, the Baloch brothers.
Zafar Baloch and his brother, Uzair, are the dons of Lyari.
And they're credited with providing basic social
services to the residents that the city
itself doesn't provide.
So even though they're accused of operating a mafia based on
drugs, kidnapping, extortion, and murder, they are the
patron saints of Lyari.
BASIM USMANI: The people over there are not going to fuck
with us if we're talking to Zafar.
SUROOSH ALVI: If anything, we got to worry about the cops.
Because they're not going to want it to get on film that
they're killing the locals.
BASIM USMANI: That they probably don't want.
SUROOSH ALVI: Yeah.
Let's avoid the cops and just hang out with the oppressed.
BASIM USMANI: Yeah.
Fuck the cops.
We already know that.
Fuck the police.
SUROOSH ALVI: We rolled up to the edge of Lyari and saw a
slew of cops and local news outlets standing on the
outside looking in.
MALE SPEAKER: [SPEAKING URDU]
SUROOSH ALVI: We met up with Zafar's boys and
followed them in.
There's a huge police operation trying
to arrest this guy.
And look at him.
He's just standing there.
BASIM USMANI: Meet the man behind the plan.
[SPEAKING URDU]
SUROOSH ALVI: Very nice to meet you.
BASIM USMANI: [SPEAKING URDU]
ZAFAR BALOCH: [SPEAKING URDU]
BASIM USMANI: [SPEAKING URDU]
ZAFAR BALOCH: [SPEAKING URDU]
BASIM USMANI: [SPEAKING URDU]
ZAFAR BALOCH: [SPEAKING URDU]
BASIM USMANI: [SPEAKING URDU]
We made it.
What'd you think of him?
SUROOSH ALVI: I like him.
He's nice.
It seemed, like, I felt safe around him.
BASIM USMANI: Yeah.
SUROOSH ALVI: You know, like, uncle.
Classic mafia, right.
The guy who's in parliament, he doesn't do anything.
And this guy does everything.
Sounds like he should be in office.
BASIM USMANI: Too bad they're trying to arrest him.
SUROOSH ALVI: But it doesn't feel like anything's going on.
What is the operation, though?
What are they trying to achieve?
SUROOSH ALVI: And you're protecting him?
[MUSIC PLAYING AND YELLING IN URDU]
MALE SPEAKER: [SPEAKING URDU]
[MUSIC PLAYING AND YELLING IN URDU]
SUROOSH ALVI: I think the cops are around the corner.
They said the cops were too afraid to come any closer.
[MUSIC PLAYING AND YELLING IN URDU]
SUROOSH ALVI: We're basically hanging out with a bunch of
young punks in the ghetto at 4:00 in the morning.
Though there were signs of serious fighting earlier in
the day, while we were there the police fired a single
canister of tear gas.
And our escort was running around suggesting slogans for
everyone to yell into our camera.
SUROOSH ALVI: This is kind of not what I was expecting.
BASIM USMANI: No.
It wasn't what I was expecting, too.
When they said that there was a protest with 10 people dead,
I didn't expect 15-year-old hood rats just going around
tearing shit up.
SUROOSH ALVI: And no people dead thanks to the
misinformation in this country.
This is the tear gas that the cops shot today.
Welcome to Karachi.
[MUSIC PLAYING AND YELLING IN URDU]
MALE SPEAKER: [SPEAKING URDU]
[MUSIC PLAYING]