Karachi is still bleeding with no respite in sight. Men are falling like the withered leaves of trees every day. Sirens of shuttling ambulances have become a way of life for the Karachiites. City hospitals are under emergency. Police had failed long since to control the situation. Even Rangers failed to separate the warring factions and at times the army had to be called in to stop the bloodshed. Yet the situation has worsened and every passing day witnesses the situation deteriorating in what people used to call the city of lights. The key question to which nobody could find an answer is after all who is responsible for it? The three main stakeholders, the PPP, the MQM and the ANP have refused to take any responsibility claiming individually that their party workers, activists and leaders were being killed. If their claims are to be believed, then who is behind this destruction? Even if this argument that those behind all this are Indian RAW, American BlackWater and Xe Services, the fact remains that they do not use their personnel and those who carry out the vicious operations are local people. From sectarian strife to gang wars, from suicide bombings to target killings and from rioting to night attacks, the situation has come to such a pass that it is hard to see whether normal political initiative would work. What is the leadership of PPP, MQM and ANP doing to make this once peaceful city return to normalcy? How far this blame game would continue with no solution in sight? Has the federal government done enough to bring these stakeholders to the negotiating table to ponder the countless killings? What result could we see of the oft-repeated assurance of peace of Interior Minister Rahman Malik? So far we have only seen an alarming rise in target killing incidents. During the past two days well over two dozen innocent people have been gunned down. The time is running out. The federal government must act fast and if the solution is to hand over the city to the army, it must be done.