A great deal has been written on the subject lately but on some matters the more said and considered the better. I’m speaking of course of the unholy trinity, Messrs Zulfiqar Mirza, Altaf Hussain and Rahman Malik, and the former’s tirade against the latter two.
Mr Mirza is certainly prone to foot in mouth syndrome, however, no one can doubt that this time some of what he verbalised was what most people wanted to hear. How much of it is true, whether or not he was put up to it, and if so by whom and for what reason is yet to be discovered.
Mr Mirza made some grave allegations against Altaf Bhai, who manages to invoke riots in Karachi every time he lifts a finger and very often he appears to be lifting all five. While keeping an open mind about whether or not he is working for foreign powers as Mr Mirza claims, it must occur to most people that the man and the political party so often implicated in violence (not that Altaf Bhai is the only person or his the only political party thus implicated), certainly does not work in Pakistan’s interests.
Mr Rehman Malik, the other subject of Mr Mirza’s tirades, can hardly call Mirza’s allegations wild since he has long been making wild claims himself about the target killings in Karachi. He has alleged over and over again over the past many months that target killing ‘is controlled in Karachi’. What is ‘controlled target killing,’ in the absence of any other control that one can discover? Is it the death of fifty, twenty, eleven, or ‘just one’ person? Regarding recent killings in Korangi he said that it was difficult for the police to do their job efficiently since they lacked adequate funds, and were not even equipped with bullet proof jackets.
I’m sorry Mr Malik, but do you even know what happened to the Rs 25,000 you handed out to the kid who broke his toy gun in two for you? How many more such grandiose gestures do you and your colleagues would make? How about all those PPP billboards all over the province, no doubt at tax-payers’ expense? These are relatively small expenditures, but there are larger ones: in the current budget, the conveyance allowance of government servants and personnel of the armed forces has been increased by twenty five percent. The expense allowance for the President’s house has been increased by almost thirteen percent. It now stands at Rs 482.63 million.
The overall budget of the Prime Minister’s house is set at Rs 1.37 billion this year. As for the Prime Minister’s Estate garden, with an increase of Rs 2.78 million from last year, the budget for the Estate garden now rests at Rs 14.33 million. How necessary are Estate gardens if they cost as much as this? Would this money buy a few bullet proof vests? Or help this poor country in some other way?
Subsidies on food and power have been slashed, for Wapda 50% and KESC 48%. The list goes on.
No attempt appears to have been made to stem the violence, the shooting, the arson, the looting. Even as Mr Malik made his ‘controlled killing’ statement, hundreds of people died. So, when Zulfiqar Mirza says Rehman Malik is a compulsive liar, thus far he is right.
One thing is certain: this government has proved incapable of and disinterested in getting rid of any problem, large or small, from target killers to mosquitoes.
Mosquitoes, like target killers, appear to have come into their own all over the country, but particularly in Lahore this year. Even as I write this I am under the weather with the dengue virus and many other people are in the same boat, most not as fortunate in access to medical help. Many have died. It appears that the insecticide used for spraying around Lahore (spraying was done much too late anyway) has proved ineffective, while that bought by individuals off the shelf works. As usual, someone is making a fast buck out of people’s misfortune.
Figures for people suffering from dengue have been fudged, like figures for most things are in Pakistan and actual figures are said to be around a hundred times higher than reported.
The same must hold true for those killed in Karachi as well.
