But murderers and criminals should not be allowed to escape
One law for the rich, another for the poor: this has neither happened for the first nor perhaps the last time. Hiding behind the religious injunctions, the powerful – belonging to the feudal, bureaucratic, military and moneyed background – have literally gotten away with murder and other crimes – browbeating their victims into submission. But in this day and age when the media focus is unrelenting, Shahzeb Khan’s killing at the hands of the trigger-happy scion of a feudal family and his criminal-minded henchmen was harbinger of a massive outrage across the country. This too we have seen several times in recent past: the case of the lynching of the two brothers in Sialkot and the murder of the intrepid television reporter Wali Khan Babar the most prominent amongst those evoking a similar outcry but by no means the only cases in point. Young and photogenic, Shahzeb’s murder evoked not just sympathy but unleashed a fury amongst the fair-minded majority. The graphic detail was enough to get everyone hooked into the story: a youth mowed down in his prime by roguish characters, the only fault of the deceased nothing more than stopping the uncouth from teasing the sister he had just married off.
Shahzeb’s murderers may have gone scot free, but the long arm of law unremittingly pursued and finally got them the richly-deserved convictions only because the Supreme Court’s suo moto made them do it – not allowing any leeway. Here is an recount of the attempts at flight and evasion that money and influence could buy: Shahrukh Jatoi, the landlord’s precious son who had ordered the murder, was whisked away from the country to the favourite haunt of the rich and famous, Dubai. This was followed by the procurement of a false report making the Jatoi boy look underage. The odour emanating from it made the media furious, and it went after it like hounds in a hunt. Again, the SC did what otherwise would have been impossible: getting the murderer traced out in his Dubai hideout and brought back in chains.
After an anti-terrorism court awarded death sentences to Shahrukh Jatoi and Nawab Siraj Talpur and life sentence to two others, instead of pursuing appeals in the Sindh High Court, the rich and influential families either coerced and pressurized or coaxed and cajoled – or maybe employed both tactics – to obtain Shahzeb’s family compromise in the shape of a pardon. Again the CJ (one may find a thousand faults in his judicial overreach but not a foot wrong here) got the nuances right. Actually this may in the end correct aberrations that Zia’s black years had inserted into the law, as a consequence putting religion into the service of the rich and the powerful. The CJ has hit the nail right on its head in his observation: “Pardoning in God’s name someone convicted of murder by a court of law was tantamount to evading the law”. Translated, it means: Crime and criminals are finding refuge and escape in religious edicts and laws. One can only pray: May the CJ and the other lords of justice find similar jurisprudential clarity and power on the demons confronting us.
