It is good to know that President Zardari, while heading a security meeting in Bilawal House in Karachi on Monday, ordered action against lawbreakers without any discrimination. He also emphasized that the situation could only improve if the three parties PPP, ANP and MQM joined hands for this purpose. Such talk is eyewash because it reeks of typical cosmetic measures that the government has been resorting to from time to time to show its concern at the situation. But call it a slip of tongue or nagging conscience, Interior Minister Rehman Malik probably for the first time took the bull by the horns and said that it were activists belonging to PPP, MQM and ANP who were involved in violence and the extortion racket. This is what already hundreds of media reports and the joint investigation report have revealed. The involvement of these major parties is essential to defeat the menace of extortion and lawlessness. The scourge of lawlessness was first perpetrated by a political party as a systematic campaign of holding sway over the city. To this day the citizens are reaping the whirlwind of these turf wars. Political parties must weed out extortionists and target killers within their ranks. It is time they set their house in order since already enough harm has been done by politically motivated violence.