These days, social media is buzzing with heated discussions about the Indian film Dhurandhar, and the debate is happening on both sides of the border. Some are talking about the characters, while others are outright calling it a full-blown propaganda piece from India.

There is chatter about Rahman Dakait here, and praise for Chaudhry Aslam there. Setting aside all the commentary, if you watch the film just as a film, even then the filmmakers have done no justice to Lyari. If you are going to show Pakistan’s negative side, at least put in a little research—how Lyari actually looks, how people live there, and who the majority “Baloch” population really is. For a nearly three-and-a-half-hour movie, if they had spent just 30 minutes on research, the results would have been very different.

Most people living in Pakistan have never even seen Karachi. And those who have visited the city never managed to set foot in Lyari either due to its sprawl, the fear of getting mugged (or worse, shot), or their own busy routines. Karachi’s culture is different from the rest of Pakistan’s, but Lyari, nestled within Karachi, has its own distinct culture. The food, the clothing, the lifestyle, the livelihood—everything is different from the rest of Karachi.

Sports: Lyari’s passion

The world also knows Lyari as “Mini Brazil.” As soon as the sun starts to set, empty spaces in Lyari turn into football fields. There’s magic in the young players here. Even in torn shoes—or barefoot—they score goals that leave spectators stunned. Children running with mud-caked shirts on Kakri Ground remind you of the streets of Brazil.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, you could see kids playing football under streetlights late into the night in Lyari’s alleys, and no one felt any fear. On rooftops, elders and youth would listen to World Cup matches on the radio and celebrate Brazil’s victories as if they were in Rio de Janeiro themselves. At Kakri Ground and People’s Stadium, boys would show off their skills. Then, in 1985, circumstances started to change. Even in those difficult times, the people of Lyari did not let their art and culture die. They endured pain but kept alive their Baloch hospitality and the magic of Makrani music.

Art, culture, and the new wave

When I look back today, I feel proud that the youth here have put down guns and picked up guitars and cameras. Now the walls of Lyari display beautiful street art instead of marks of “gang wars.”

Young people are blending Lewa dance with modern music (rap) and bringing fame to Lyari across the world. Now, sitting in the cafés here, the youth talk about startups and education.

Gang war: A tragic story

I am from Punjab, and I have been coming and going to Karachi for over 20 years. During this time, I’ve seen many things that may have become normal for locals but were completely new to an outsider like myself. The first time I went to Karachi, I stayed in Lyari, where the culture was mind-blowing. It was time when gang wars started to mushroom. Despite all that, the doors of everyone’s heart were open for non-locals. But unfortunately, the same Lyari later became the centre of a bloody war that we now know as the “Lyari gang war”. This gang war engulfed not only Lyari but the whole of Karachi in fear, unrest, and destruction.

Lyari’s situation

From the beginning, Lyari has been a poor but courageous area. Most residents were labourers, fishermen, rickshaw drivers, and small business owners. Despite poverty, unemployment, and lack of basic facilities, people here lived peacefully. However, rising unemployment, inadequate education, and despair among the youth slowly created space for crime to flourish.

In the 1980s and 1990s, petty crimes already existed in Lyari, like gambling, drugs, theft, and illegal arms trade. These were initially limited, but due to government neglect and weak law enforcement, they kept growing. Youth deprived of jobs and education started joining these activities for easy money.

The start of Lyari gang war

The proper Lyari gang war began between 2004 and 2005. At first, it was just a fight for influence among a few criminal groups. Each group wanted control over drug sales, more income through extortion, and dominance in the area. These minor clashes turned into deep enmity over time, and then open war began.

Gangsters started posting their men in every neighbourhood like police officers. Back then, in every alley of Lyari, you could see boys from different gangs carrying guns, whom locals called “Lala.” Their distinctive look—six-pocket trousers and T-shirts—identified them from afar. There were even recruitment rules for Makrani boys: they got Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 daily for security duties, plus weapons, on the condition that they would neither sell drugs in their own area nor commit robbery or any other illegal act there.

You can gauge Rahman Dakait’s terror in his own area from this small incident: when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated and riots broke out across the country with looting, two days later Rahman appeared publicly and announced that looted goods must be returned—and just like a film scene, the residents returned the stolen items.

The formations

Two brothers from Afshani Gali in Lyari’s Kalakot—Sher Muhammad (Sheru) and Dad Muhammad (Dadal, Rahman Baloch’s father)—started organizing their own group to expand the drug business and gain power. On the other side, Iqbal alias Babu Dakait’s group, also involved in drugs, was active in Kalri and surrounding neighbourhoods. Around the same time, Haji Lalu, with his six or seven sons including Arshad Pappu and Yasir Arafat, was running a strong group. Haji Lalu operated his sand, drugs, and extortion business in the Sher Shah Graveyard area of Jahanabad, which later expanded into the profitable kidnapping-for-ransom trade. The struggle for money and power soon turned into armed clashes.

Rahman Baloch’s father Dadal was killed by Babu Dakait, and after Dadal’s death, Haji Lalu took Rahman under his wing. This is where Rahman Baloch became such a ruthless traveller on the path of murder and plunder that he allegedly first shot and killed his own mother and never looked back. Rahman, who went on to ignite the market of murder and hooliganism, one day killed Babu Dakait to avenge his father.

In Haji Lalu’s group, Rahman Baloch, along with Haji Lalu’s sons Arshad Pappu and Yasir Arafat, made the criminal empire unconquerable. Rahman and Haji Lalu’s relationship was so deep that both Yasir Arafat and Rahman married daughters of Seth Yusuf from Golimar. But soon, business jealousy and the pull to outdo each other led to a falling-out between Rahman and Haji Lalu and his sons. Rahman realised he could not establish his own separate status in the criminal world while under Haji Lalu’s influence. In this tense atmosphere of internal conflict within the group, Rahman one day openly opposed Lalu, and that friction divided their paths.

When this confrontational attitude turned into enmity, Lalu’s son Arshad Pappu tried to eliminate Rahman in Kalakot. Rahman survived, but Pappu’s anger turned toward Rahman’s relatives.

In response, Rahman gathered his remaining strength and began attacking Pappu’s relatives, among whom Baloch Ittehad leader and well-known Lyari figure Anwar Bhai Jan was also killed. In the same war, Arshad Pappu one day killed Rahman’s uncle near Hub Chowki in a very cinematic style. Arshad Pappu and his father Haji Lalu’s group started targeting Rahman’s business interests one by one. There came a time when Rahman had to leave Lyari for Balochistan and could not return until Arshad Pappu was arrested and jailed. Then Rahman came back to Lyari.

Emergence of Uzair Baloch

A transporter named Faiz Muhammad (Faizu), who was actually a timekeeper at a bus stand near Jhat Pat Market in Chakiwara’s Singu Lane for public transport going to Balochistan, was an informer for both Rahman and the police. He collected extortion from bus owners and passed the money to Rahman. He was Rahman’s close and trusted man and had been collecting extortion for him for a long time. Arshad Pappu told Faizu that from now on the extortion would go to them, not Rahman. On refusal and opposition, he met the same fate that opponents of Arshad Pappu or Rahman met in an area like Lyari. Arshad Pappu kidnapped and killed Faizu. This Faizu was Uzair Baloch’s father.

At the start of his life, Uzair stayed completely away from this world of crime and punishment. He worked as a ward boy at Lyari General Hospital, and his father wanted to get him a job as a footballer at Karachi Port Trust (KPT). After Arshad Pappu killed Uzair’s father, Rahman took Uzair under his protection in exactly the same way Haji Lalu had once protected Rahman himself.

In no time, Rahman’s grip on Lyari became so strong that decisions about who would become councillor or district nazim could not happen without Rahman Baloch’s approval. When things went too far, Rahman Baloch was killed in a police encounter by Superintendent Chaudhry Aslam, and the story ended.

After Rahman’s death, the gang decided to make Uzair Baloch the leader. When Uzair took over the leadership, the killing business was handed over to other representatives under Baba Ladla and others. Some areas and powers went to Ustad Taju, and all the gang’s leaders more or less pledged allegiance to Uzair.

Uzair started gradually replacing all the gang’s warrior leaders. Baba Ladla felt Uzair was strengthening his grip, so he chose to oppose Uzair Baloch and the commanders Uzair had appointed. Even Uzair’s local commanders feared Baba Ladla because he was extremely cruel. Uzair’s group had spread its feet and started extortion in areas of the city’s other major party.

In areas bordering Lyari—Plaza, Tibet Centre, Saddar, Aram Bagh, Garden, Pak Colony, Nishtar Road, and many others—Lyari gang war operatives were openly distributing extortion slips in markets.

Then violence against the Baloch population intensified in those areas, and their bodies started appearing in places including Ranchore Line. On the other side, in areas like Nishtar Road and Dhobi Ghat, passengers were identified by language on buses, pulled off, kidnapped, subjected to brutal torture, and then killed. Apart from Lyari, in Baloch-populated areas of the city, Uzair Baloch—who had become leader in Rahman’s place—started strengthening his power and formed organised alliances from Malir to Moach Goth, Liaquatabad, Baloch Para to Khamiso Colony, and Jehangir Road to Orangi.

This game of territorial control split into two factions. One group started giving political and armed support to Uzair, while the other group, which included the leadership of MQM, began backing Uzair’s biggest opponents—Arshad Pappu and another Lyari warlord Ghaffar Zikri. Ghaffar Zikri, who belonged to Turbat in Balochistan, had once been Rahman’s supporter but by then had become an opponent of Rahman’s group and had established himself in areas like Edo Lane and Zikri Para.

Meanwhile, Arshad Pappu was released from jail. Like a flickering flame, Arshad made desperate efforts to reorganise his and his father Haji Lalu’s scattered gang and bring it up against Uzair and Rahman’s gang, but by then Uzair’s gang had completely dominated, and mutilated bodies of opponents started appearing across the area. In such an environment, fully armed with politics and gun power, Uzair got the chance to avenge his father’s murder when Arshad Pappu came out of jail. Arshad Pappu was the same son of Haji Lalu who had killed Uzair’s father Faizu in opposition to Rahman. According to local residents, Pappu was picked up from Sheru’s house in front of PNS Shifa in Defence. Sheru was Pappu’s close man, and his brother Hameed was also there. Most people in the revenge-burning crowd had lost loved ones or companions to Pappu himself. Arshad Pappu’s fingers were cut off, and hands and legs severed while he still drew breath. Whatever weapon was in hand—knife, dagger—was used. Some threw stones, while others used sticks. Even in that state, Arshad Pappu kept abusing his attackers.

According to reports published in Pakistani newspapers, the enraged killers, burning in revenge, finally severed Arshad Pappu’s head from his body after the torture. His severed head was kicked around (some newspapers called it playing football), the body was cut into pieces, and finally petrol was poured on the remaining mutilated parts and set on fire. This was the end of Arshad Pappu, who had killed Uzair’s father Faizu. The fate of Baba Ladla, who left the gang and became Uzair Baloch’s enemy, was obviously not good either. A bomb attack was carried out on Baba Ladla, a resident of Dubai Chowk Kalri, during a football match. Baba Ladla survived, but six or seven people were killed.

The leader of a gang with over 200 members, Baba Ladla, in retaliation killed Zafar Baloch, Uzair’s extremely close associate. Uzair and Baba’s commanders clashed. As soon as Uzair sensed the gravity of the situation, he decided it was better to leave the area and one day slipped out of Lyari. Uzair and Taju did not even tell their own area commanders and quietly left Lyari. Raids were conducted almost daily in Lyari for arresting gang war members. People like Baba Ladla and Ghaffar Zikri were killed in encounters while trying to avoid arrest in such raids, and slowly the grip of the gang war shrouding Lyari began to loosen.

They were eliminated in exactly the same style as Rahman’s killing. Many warlords and their gang members were killed during this period, but Uzair first went via Balochistan to Iran and finally reached Dubai. By the end of 2013, Uzair had arrived in Dubai on a fake Iranian passport. He is still in the custody of security agencies with several cases ongoing against him, while Rahman Dakait’s son and successor Saraban Baloch has already been killed in an encounter with Nabi Bakhsh police.

Lyari’s revival

Today, Lyari is trying to regain its identity. Sports activities are resuming, youth are turning toward positive pursuits, peace has been established, but memories remain. People want Lyari to be recognised once more only for its talent. The Lyari gang war is a dark chapter in Pakistan’s history. This story is not just of gangs but also of deprivation, injustice, and state failure. Lyari has seen a lot of blood and suffered great loss, but hope is still alive that this area will once again become a symbol of peace, prosperity, and progress.