It was an impossible situation. Politics aside, even the opposition parties admitted in private that the government was in a very tough spot. Keep, and as a logical progression, punish Raymond Davis, and the Americans would have claimed a violation of the Vienna Convention. Let him go, and local public backlash would have been off the charts.
The situation has finally been resolved. The US government would presumably be happy. And though the Pakistani public isnt, the way out that the powers that be have sought is perhaps the least offensive of all possible alternatives. Deeyat, or blood money, is an established practice in the Muslim jurisprudential tradition. Questioning the philosophy behind this provision, as some secular human rights activists are wont to from time to time, is a hazardous route in our country. Moreover, it is nigh-unthinkable for the right-wing, who fuel the hang-him brigade, to do so. Both the federal and Punjab governments would have also heaved a sigh of relief. The League, because law and order is a provincial subject; the PPP, because the issue had brewed into a diplomatic crisis of sorts. Now, the incident is behind them and they can both play the blame game as far as the residual resentment is concerned.
Given the powderkeg nature of the polity at the moment, a measure of closure would do us a spot of good. The decision was also an eye-ball to eye-ball affair between the CIA and the local spooks. But it just might not be a zero-sum deal. The Americans got their man and the Pakistani establishments bargaining position vis–vis the Americans would also have improved.
A total of four people lost their lives in incidents related to Raymond Davis. That the Americans now know that we wont take just about anything their musclemen do lying down anymore just might be the silver lining to this dreary cloud.
