When Misbah Naeem, a middle-aged teacher at a government school in PECHS, woke up on Wednesday, October 20 - the morning after the attack on Shershah's scrap yard, she was still unsure if she was supposed to go to work.

"I had gone to sleep a few minutes after midnight, but there had been no announcements on television about schools closure. When I woke up, around 6am, we hadn't received our copy of the newspaper. My husband told me to rely on my van driver, and as it turned out, he didn't show up," Naeem told Kolachi as she made space for herself in a school-van.

With the city being held hostage to periodic violence, the education sector is among the worst-hit in times of insecurity. Failure to draw up a rapid response regarding schools closure is a major failing of the government, Private Schools Management Association (PSMA) Chairman Sharaf-uz-Zaman told Kolachi.

"The government and its education department fail to respond to the unrest in a timely manner; they have no Plan B," Zaman said. "The authorities concerned never take decisions on time, usually taking hours to come up with some sort of a strategy.

"If any schools closure announcements are made, they are usually made very late. Parents and school administrations look to the government for some direction, but in our situation, they are usually left confused," the PSMA chairman said.

While private-sector schools are always reluctant to run their businesses under uncertain conditions, there are more than 5,000 schools - including community-based centres affiliated with the Board of Secondary Education Karachi (BIEK) – that are dependant on government directives.

"Private-sector institutions, including vocational and technical schools, and to a lesser extent government-run schools usually observe an unannounced holiday on days of insecurity, while parents also prefer not to send their children to school," Zaman said.

On its part, the PSMA has regional heads in 18 towns of the city, all of whom utilise the association's predefined parameters to gauge whether it is wise to keep schools open. "We consider if general transport is easily accessible; whether major commercial centres and markets are open; and if fuel stations are available to serve motorists," the PSMA chairman argued.

The regional heads maintain constant liaison the management and owners of schools, and also seek advice and input from principals and senior teachers of the schools. The information about their respective areas and neighbourhoods is passed onto the association's central management, which makes the final call.

"There is a rationale to our methodology. In most cases, children are dropped off to school in vans or by their parents or guardians, and a few come by public transport. Whenever there is a law and order situation in the city, these options are automatically reduced. Children have no other choice except to remain at home, since the majority of them cannot go home on their own," Zaman said.

"It is a simple but effective methodology, I think, and the government should also practice it," the PSMA chairman stressed.

Zaman argued that almost 80 per cent of the school workforce, both teaching and non-teaching staff, is comprised of female employees, but neither they nor the male staff are equipped to handle the worst case scenarios. "Even male staff is powerless when there is chaos everywhere," he said.

Naeem, on the other hand, told Kolachi that the last time when the city was held hostage to violence, she had asked her husband to drop her off to work. "Even though attendance was thin, going to school turned out to be a blessing in disguise because a lot of my students were left stranded till late, and we actually had to call the parents up and tell them to come and their children home," she narrated.

"One of the girls was in school till 4pm, and her parents were trapped on the other end of the city, in Liaquatabad. When my husband arrived to pick me up, I called up the parents and told them I could drop their daughter off to one of their relatives. And so, we dropped the girl off to her aunt's in Bahadurabad. What I often think is what would have happened to her that day if I hadn't gone to work. God works in mysterious ways," Naeem said.

Despite fulfilling her obligations, Naeem was also mindful of the loss of valuable class time. "Some schools have already started calling in teachers and children on Saturdays, but we haven't had such orders as yet.

But how long do you think this situation will last? We often had staff meetings on Saturdays, but in the current scenario, we will not be able to plan lessons either," she said.

Loss of class time was also a concern with Hamad Shah, a student at a nearby chartered accountancy institute. "Gone are the days when we were children, hoping for holidays every now and then. My elder brother tells me that when he was growing up in the 90s, they had lots of holidays. But these days, everyone is concerned about his or her career. We cannot expect to complete our courses if we can't get to the institute, or if the institute is shut. It is a huge loss for us," he said.

Students from the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), however, said that regardless of what happens, they have to get to college. "IBA is never shut, and because of attendance rules and regulations, we need to get to college. If we took off-days every time there was violence in the city, we would pretty much fail every course," Omair Rana told Kolachi.

Zaman argued that the Education Department should establish a committee comprising of school managements, school associations, as well as teachers of government and private schools. This committee should be responsible to review the law and order situation whenever there is chaos in the city, and advice the department concerned accordingly.

"We have seen bloodshed on the streets of our city. Given that there is no proper policing system available in Karachi, how can we risk millions of innocent lives?" he questioned.

A thin haggard man with dark circles under his eyes, Shahzar Khan looks older than his 45 years as he narrates his ordeal. It began soon after a prominent MPA of a political party was shot dead some two months ago. The incident reflects the danger that increasingly lurks for vulnerable people like him on the streets of Karachi when trouble erupts and underlines how they risk everything simply to earn an honest living.

As the news of the murder broke out, the metropolis witnessed a horrible killing spree which made transport and the usual businesses come to a complete standstill.

Out to earn his daily wages, Khan did not know what was in store for him when he took a turn from a bridge near Golimar Number 2, just minutes before midnight. Six men stopped his rickshaw and asked him to take it to a small deserted street. After stopping him, three of them grabbed his arms while the other three fired, aiming at his legs.

"They fired five bullets at me. I was down on my knees on the second one," says Shahzar. Fearing that his life was about to end, he was relieved when the men left him near a gutter and torched his rickshaw.

Soaked with blood, Khan says it took him several minutes to stand up. When he did, he staggered towards the main road to seek help. After a while, a rickshaw stopped for him and took him to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.

Sitting in his rickshaw in Railway Colony, Shahzar says he will never forget that night as just in a matter of minutes his whole life was 'ruined'.

At the hospital he received care and treatment and was told that luckily three of the bullets went through his legs because of which he will have to come again for a check-up every three weeks and was sent home.

It has been two months since that night, Khan has neither gone for a check-up nor does he want to. He cannot walk properly now and says that at times he feels dizzy and nauseous while driving. "I barely earn Rs300 in a day now, and with six children and a wife to look after, I cannot afford the luxury to go for care and treatment, even if I wanted to."

 Hailing from Buner, Khan came to Karachi 15 years ago to earn a living as he felt there was no future for him in his forefather's land. Selling the only piece of land that he owned for Rs. 120,000 he came to Karachi and bought a rickshaw. It was the same rickshaw that was torched before his eyes the night he watched his future go up in flames. "I sold it for Rs. 10,000 to a junk yard," he says quietly.

After the recent bout of target killings in the city, rickshaw drivers have become more cautious and avoid going out until the violence subsides. Some of those who have no other option venture out risking their lives to earn a few hundred rupees.

With no union and nobody to voice their grievances, the rickshaw drivers say that it is just as well that they have no one to represent them. "Everyone becomes a crook after getting a taste of power and we already have our fair share of problems and don't want any more," says Mehboob Khan.

Squatting on a footpath, Mehboob, a friend of Shazar, has been helping him out with money whenever he needed it most. "At present, he owes me Rs. 10,000 but I know his condition and know for sure that he cannot pay me the whole sum even in the coming 10 years. Whatever we earn is spent on our children," he adds.

For rickshaw drivers, Railway Colony is like a hang out place, where they meet each other, repair their rickshaws and share the latest news while sipping a doodh patti from the nearest tea stall. Oblivious to the mixture of ethnicities living in the locality, the residents are mostly labors and at the end of the day find nothing more satisfying than to have earned a good living at the end of the day.

Speaking about the changes that Karachi has gone through within the past 15 years, Mehboob believes that when it comes to violence the city goes into the same stillness and uncertainty it used to before. Trying to explain the change in the nature of violence, Mahboob says, "The only difference back then was that we could easily sleep on the pavements at night, but then we heard of a criminal group which used to hammer in the heads of people as they slept outdoors. So we were forced to move inside our homes."

Even until recently, he says, rickshaw drivers were never attacked but now it is a different ball game altogether.

With no certainty of whether they will be alive the next day, the residents of his area, including a majority of rickshaw drivers, donate Rs. 10 at the end of each month (which adds up to Rs 120 at the end of the year) to the head of a Jirga within the locality, so that their burial is taken care of from the money that is saved.

The rickshaw drivers point towards a food stall at the end of the street and say that usually people from different areas come here to have lunch. "We do not ask them where they are from and what they want from us. We welcome everyone here for a cup of tea."

Shahzar says that life in Karachi is addictive. You can come to the city at will, but somehow cannot leave this city easily. Nodding in agreement, Mehboob says that this is what keeps them glued to Karachi, even after going through so much. "Because the city accepts you without asking about your ethnicity, whereas other people deem it necessary," smiles Mehboob wistfully.