One of Pakistan’s famous decorative buses gets hit by one of Karachi’s infamous outbursts of violence. Photo by Zia Mazhar/Associated Press.
Karachi Kills VICE
A Scene Report from the Most Insane City in Pakistan
Photos by Jason MojicaInterviewing a "target killer" in Karachi was probably the scariest thing I've done in my 17 years at VICE. His gun sat between my feet in the backseat of our car as we drove in circles around his neighborhood. After our chat about killing people for a living, I felt like vomiting for three hours. I've been around my share of guns and violence, but sitting next to someone who has murdered 35 people (for between $550 and $1,100 per head) made me feel not so good.
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By Aziza Ahmad
Aziza is a student at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in Karachi.After we sent this flyer out, people wrote to us asking whether we had a death wish. We replied, "Dude, that should be clear from the title of the event.What's more punk than a flyer featuring a collage of Pakistani subculture put together using MS Paint while skipping class? How about if your flyer is laughed at (and promptly handed back) by the guy at the copy shop, frowned at by your acquaintances, and banned from the venue it's supposedly promoting?The poster I made for the Karachi Kills VICE show received just such a response for depicting a posterior not much different from one you'd see on Cartoon Network. And it's not like sex is totally taboo in Karachi. Walk down any street and you're bound to run into a sassy hijra (tranny) who might or might not visit a dark alley with you, a ten-year-old flipping the deuces and hustling roses (who might or might not have been in a dark alley beforehand), or a burka-clad prostitute who probably isn't down with the alley (you better bring a car). Even so, this city reacted in an insane way to a poorly drawn sex act—a black squiggle away from being banned from the walls of the local cinema—but was totally OK with the Taliban fighter ringed in hearts and the flower-shooting drone inches away from him.
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By Babar N. Sheikh
Babar is a filmmaker and metal expert who works in advertising in Karachi. The cover art for Dusk's 2003 release, Jahilia.It's a little after 10 PM in Karachi, and the few metalheads living in this mammoth metropolis meet up after work for some Chinese food, over which they discuss the new Fenriz interview and the fact that DRI has decided to tour Asia. Conversations are spiced with loads of metal trivia and the usual bitching about some guy who ripped someone off in a record trade. These guys worship the second Tormentor demo and all of Sarcófago's records.Metal in Pakistan was stillborn. There was a brief embryonic phase in the mid- to late 90s when bands like Dusk—which I am a member of—put Pakistan on the map of international metal, and there is still a small scene of loyal metal fans. Those were the days when interviews could only be read in zines, when you would kill someone if he bent your records on the bus ride back home, when Bolt Thrower's Jo Bench was queen. But in Karachi, even though it's 2012, some of us still live in that time.DINNER AND A MOVIE WITH A COUPLE OF KARACHI WISE GUYS
By Basim Usmani
Basim plays in Pakistani punk band The Kominas and lives in Boston.
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By Osama Motiwala
Osama is a 19-year-old who loves Hunter S. Thompson and took care of us in Karachi (thanks kid).Nabil Gabol, of the Pakistan People's Party, travels with a massive private army but still always carries his own Kalashnikov.Early in the morning on Tuesday, March 27, just hours after VICE left Karachi, two members of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a liberal political party, were shot dead by gunmen who invaded their homes. Everyone knew that the city was about to get fucked… hard. The suspect was connected with the Peoples' Aman Committee, a bitter political rival of the MQM. So it looked like yet another case of "You fuck with us, we kill you!"In Orangi Town, the suspected new hideout for the Taliban, police conduct a raid for the benefit of the media and manage to nab one bearded guy with a 9-mm.As expected, armed men subsequently took control of the city, ritually setting fire to vehicles in the process. By sundown, dozens of cars and buses were ablaze, nine people were dead, and others had been injured, mostly in the areas where VICE had been reporting. Shops, schools, public transportation, and gas stations were shut down.Clashes between political and ethnic groups have turned Karachi into a shithole. Around 1,700 people lost their lives last year due to the violence in the city. However, the people of Karachi possess a certain "We don't give a fuck!" mind-set. They watch the news and then whine about how bad everything is. And that's about it.