No one killed Karachi

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Earlier this year, Raj Kumar Gupta’s No One Killed Jessica hit the box-office in India. Gupta had attempted to capture the entire tale of the Jessica Lall murder case — the initial verdict of which had exonerated the main accused, the son of a Congress-nominated Member of Parliament from Haryana.

Jessica Lall lived in Delhi, and worked as a celebrity barmaid. At a party, held on April 29, 1999, she was shot dead by Siddharth Vashisht, after the young man lost his cool over having been refused a drink. The murder trial started in August 1999 in a Delhi lower court. It ended some six-and-a-half years later, on February 21, 2006 – the court had not found the accused guilty, and the prosecution had failed to prove its case, and that the police had “sought to ‘create’ and ‘introduce false evidence’” and even failed to recover the murder weapon. Through a crude interpretation of law, a man who killed a woman was set to walk free. The next day, a newspaper ran the headline ‘No one killed Jessica’.

The case was picked up by the Delhi High Court – suo moto notice, lest we forget. The case was being reopened after massive protests from common citizens through a television channel. Another website, through one of its sting operations, exposed the perjury of Lall’s co-worker. Eventually, the main accused was sentenced to life after a 25-day re-trial. His friends, eye-witnesses to the crime, were given four years each on account of destroying evidence. The high court had noted that “the lower court had been lax in not considering the testimony of witnesses” while all 32 witnesses who turned hostile were asked to appear before the court to explain why they should not be tried for perjury. This was a more refined interpretation of law.

After the lawyers’ movement, the expectations from the Pakistani Supreme Court have been many. That it took suo moto notice over the killings in Karachi was an interesting test case for the observers: how much could the Supreme Court say, and what sort of sentences would it award. After all, this was a suo moto case, and while those in Karachi know all that’s happenings on the streets of Karachi, putting it in a legal document could prove damning for many.

That the Supreme Court will now have a direct influence in anti-terrorism courts is very welcome; the tricky part is that the courts have little or no control over the process of how cases are built up. The same process that allowed Siddharth Vashisht to get acquitted by the lower court, which includes witness tampering through coercive means. Despite the protestations of Dr Zulfikar Mirza, police stations in Karachi still operate on political basis – something that the Supreme Court also acknowledges. But not all matters can be detailed in a legal document, for it creates complications elsewhere.

And while the Supreme Court has been very meticulous in drafting its verdict, what we Karachiites had hoped for was something more tangible. More convictions of those arrested, complete disclosure of the backgrounds and affiliations of those involved, administrative directions to the provincial government to report updates to the court. But more convictions, that would have sufficed.

But alas, we did not get many convictions, and the kind of details that could make us hold one or the other party responsible were also missing.

On September 20, 1996, Mir Murtaza Bhutto was killed in Karachi by a police party. Till today, there are mere theories on whether the murder was politically motivated or not. But till today, no one killed Murtaza Bhutto.

More than 400, some even say 500, people were killed in Karachi during the last spate of violence. For those who grieved the loss of those who died, the SC’s verdict on Karachi is little more than knowledge on the street. For them, no one killed their sons and daughters, fathers and mothers. Karachi was being killed, but no one killed Karachi.

1 COMMENT

  1. Mr Hussain!!! Really cant understand wat point r u making out of the 2 cases!!! u r comparing an assassination 2 an accident!! To me manu sharma's act was not deliberate cause there r many flaws in the case!!! To meit looks more of an accident than a deliberate crime!!! Little that i have read even his confession which was made public, (which is illegal) says it was a mis-shot, though he has been convicted for deliberate murder, which i dont think is correct!!! R u asking 4 another media trial, Which is just nt the correct way of getting JUSTICE!!! R u mixing the 2 cases cause The Headlines was sensational!! Cause every1,Media, print, electronic, including the movie "No 1 killed jessica used Manu sharma's case just to make money!!! Basically made it a sensational case, to seek attention of the common man!!! Every 1 talks abt manu sharma in bad lighjt, where he has been doing gr8 work, for the society through his NGO!! I have been reading some positive articles abt him lately aswell, so Y is the media nt taking up his good work aswell, nationally!! Guess nt enough TRP's!!! He does'nt seem as a bad person as portrayed by the media!!! I believe we all r humans & we all make mistakes, if so much negative was written abt for one mistake that he committed being drunk, i believe even the good done by such pple must b Highlighted!!! Last but nt the least, Nice article!! "Justice must be served:))))

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