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Veteran actor Bushra Ansari is done watching Karachi fall apart, and she wants answers from the people responsible.

In a heartfelt Instagram video posted on Tuesday, the Karachi-born star — who spent much of her life in Punjab before returning to the city — voiced her frustration over its long-standing decay. From garbage piling up to broken roads and collapsing infrastructure, Ansari questioned why those in power refuse to fix a city that sustains millions and drives opportunities for people across Pakistan.

“For the past 30 to 40 years, we have been hearing that no one is paying attention to Karachi,” she said. “Sometimes MQM, sometimes Peoples Party… Why does no one think of doing something for Karachi someday?”

Ansari revisited a time when the city was a thriving, harmonious space post-Partition — home to Parsis, Hindus, Muslims and Christians. A clean, beautiful city free of what she called “mental pollution”. That Karachi has long slipped away.

The decline she’s talking about isn’t imagined. In June this year, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) ranked Karachi 170th out of 173 cities on the global Livability Index — making it the world’s fourth-worst city to live in.

The crises are endless: water shortages, crumbling roads, poor infrastructure, mismanaged traffic, rampant beggary, and failing law and order. A city dying a little more every day.

Yet, despite it all, Ansari insisted that Karachiites remain warm and welcoming.

“Yes, Karachi is broken, the roads are broken, but its people are not. The people here have always been very warm, the environment very welcoming.”

Turning her focus to the rest of Sindh, she asked why the government refuses to uplift even its own people. “Karachi is part of Sindh, and you look at the condition of interior Sindh,” she sighed. “What do I even say?”

“Their own people, Sindhis, don’t have slippers on their feet. They have nothing in their hands. They are suffering from poverty.”

Like every Karachiite, Ansari is tired of political promises that never materialise. Her plea was simple — and desperate. “Why can’t we see the change? Please do something. There should be someone who can perform this miracle. Till when? And why not? Give us answers for Karachi.”

She even suggested that the entire city file a petition to demand change, only to pause and ask the most telling question of all: file it against whom?

“The people responsible are also Karachiites. Do they not love Karachi? When will you fix it? When?”

Karachi is facing a plethora of challenges due to a poor system of waste management as well.

Once known as the City of Lights, Karachi has been systematically downgraded to the garbage dump of the country. And in the name of resilience, its people have been forced to accept what should have been unacceptable: poor infrastructure, mismanaged traffic and the pathetic law and order situation. That is the only choice they seem to have.

But through Ansari’s voice, one thing is clear — every single citizen of this city is in pain seeing its condition.