Not just the Rangers

Ever since Abbottabad, many were arguing that the police – despite their inefficient working and tardy responses – are more reliable than the Army. The kidnapping and subsequent murder of journalist Saleem Shahzad did nothing to refute this line of reasoning; after all, not many believed the police were responsible. The killing of Sarfaraz Shah, the 17-year-old young man shot and left to die by Rangers sepoys, could reinforce said opinion but a glance at the law and order situation would attest that all is not well with the police either.

Shah’s killing is not the first incident of an extra-judicial murder in Karachi, nor will it be the last. The barbarity of the Rangers is not merely the act of an individual or two, it is symptomatic of the attitudes being ingrained at training centres. The police’s reaction was also typical: ever cognizant of the legal lacunas, a senior police official ensured that Shah’s body was not released to the heirs before he was posthumously registered as a robber in all documents and FIRs.

Notwithstanding a suspension or two – essentially a paid leave from work – when the murder case comes up for hearing, the accused Rangers personnel will have documents and the law to support their claims. Of course, regardless of what the Supreme Court does or say right now, those loyal are bound to be rewarded at the next transfer or posting. The Supreme Court, quite obviously, will not decide those rather lucrative matters.

But what worries me more is the fudging of the rulebook by all and sundry, including citizens. In the absence of law, can we ever expect justice? Will the accused in heinous cases ever get punished, even if all evidence is incriminatory? Will Mumtaz Qadri be punished? Will those who assisted him be caught and tried? Much of the responsibility for that lies with us citizens, those who glorify Qadri and his ilk rather than ensure that criminals are taken to a court of law and a due legal process takes. Will the time ever come when we accord the same right of legal hearing to common thieves as that we afforded to Qadri?

Civilian attitudes, however, are that courtrooms are to be used for building pressure and to negotiate or blackmail. Some time ago, Karachi’s Shershah scrapyard was attacked by “unidentified” men. The attack, as it emerged, was essentially because of a disagreement over the rate and distribution of extortion money. That same night, the MQM issued a list of suspects involved in the attack – most belonged to Lyari, and the PPP-backed Amn Committee. Under political pressure, some arrests were made but the main suspect – a notorious gangster – remained at large.

When the case came up for hearing, the prime witness refused to identify the suspects in an identification parade. Behind the scenes, the PPP and MQM had allegedly reached a compromise: if the MQM did not identify the Shershah accused, the PPP would release an equal number of their activists who had been arrested in connection with targeted violence.

With this arrangement, the PPP and MQM both had their ways, no one was held responsible for killing citizens – neither in Shershah nor elsewhere in the city, all suspects were released by a court for want of evidence, and life goes on.

It is not just because of our security agencies that an environment of insecurity has been created, the civilian leadership is equally responsible for citizens taking matters into their own hands rather than expect protection or wait for some help. Some two weeks ago, cars lined up on the Mai Kolachi Bypass in Karachi as a railway crossing had been closed for a train to pass. Four men riding on two motorcycles emerged from a nearby colony, and started looting cars on gunpoint. In one of the cars, however, was a man who kept a weapon himself. By the time the goons reached his car, he pulled his gun out and shot all four of them in front of hundreds of witnesses. And drove off, to much shock and equal appreciation from citizens who had been robbed a few minutes ago.

That night, as we called up police stations and other sources, we were told that four bandits had been killed in an encounter. I was even asked not to ask too many questions, the man in question was connected with some very powerful men of the city and no records existed wherein a citizen had shot at four men.

There is little to distinguish in the Shah case and this unreported act of vigilante justice, except perhaps that in the second incident, the man pulled the trigger before someone else shot him dead. In our jungle, lawlessness is the law, enforced by our security forces – dressed in khaki or black.

The writer is Deputy City Editor, Karachi, Pakistan Today.