Injustice that speaks louder than all the justice in the world
Recently Pakistan once again witnessed the death of an innocent teenager as a result of an act of indiscriminate firing and aggression by the son of a politically connected family. According to news reports, Mustafa Kanju has since admitted that he fired the shots that resulted in the death of the teenager, Zain. He was on the run until the Chief Minister Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif, directed the law enforcement agencies to arrest him. The tragic death of 16-year-old Zain had nothing to do with what Zain did or didn’t do that day – he just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and fell victim to the anger and false pride of a land owner from rural Punjab. He died because somehow Kanju decided that the appropriate response to a road rage incident was to undertake indiscriminate firing and create fear amongst the crowd. One can’t be sure whether he realised that such firing could result in injuries and death as well.
Kanju is not alone in this league of fake lords and we have witnessed such deadly incidents of road rage earlier as well. Only last year, Abdul Qadir Gilani’s guard killed a motorcyclist, Tahir, who had the misfortune of crossing the path of the motorcade of the former Prime Minister’s son. In both cases, the accused have been booked for offences under the Pakistan Penal Code as well as the Anti-Terrorism Act.
Considering that the Islamabad High Court recently held that Mumtaz Qadri’s act of killing Governor Punjab, Salmaan Taseer, did not constitute terrorism under the provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Act, many may wonder how the acts of Kanju and Gilani’s guard can be termed as ‘terrorism’. What constitutes terrorism and the definitional challenges being faced internationally in this respect will have to be considered separately. However, for the purposes of the above mentioned incidents we just need to analyse the definition of terrorism as per the Anti-Terrorism Act of Pakistan.
Terrorism is defined in the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997 (as amended) in Section 6 and the punishments related to terrorism related offences are given in Section 7 of the same Act. It is important to understand that the definition of ‘terrorism’, according to the currently applicable laws in Pakistan, is not merely confined to an act of an enemy of the state involving suicide bombings or attacks on schools, armed forces and places of worship.
In fact, the definition is much broader and aims to cover incidents where the use or threat (of action) is designed to coerce and intimidate or overawe the Government or the public or a section of the public or community or sect or a foreign government or population or an international organisation or create a sense of fear or insecurity in society.
Moreover, according to Section 6 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, terrorism is also the use or threat of action where the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a religious, sectarian or ethnic cause or intimidating and terrorising the public, social sectors, media persons, business community or attacking the civilians, including damaging property by ransacking, looting, arson or by any other means, government officials, installations, security forces or law enforcement agencies.
It is clear that in the above mentioned cases involving Kanju and Gilani, there was not just a threat of action but rather an actual fatal action of firing upon members of the public, especially in the absence of personal enmity, and in both cases it had the outcome of ‘intimidating and terrorising the public’ and ‘attacking (the) civilians’. And all this happened while commuting on a public road, constructed with public funds, for use by the public. In fact, one could argue that these incidents intimidated and terrorised not only the people present at the scene of the crime but also the public at large.
I am sure that many of you have been stopped by co-passengers or stopped your own drivers from getting into arguments with drivers of similar motorcades even when you know that they have shown a blatant disregard for traffic rules, for fear of some crazy reaction from the passengers or their loyal trigger happy armed guards. This is what this league of fake lords, with a sense of self entitlement, has managed to achieve. They have created a sense of fear among the people of Pakistan resulting in desired restraint and submission towards those with private or official security details. This is modern day terrorism and one that can be considered as such under the laws of Pakistan.
Coming back to the definition of terrorism under the Anti-Terrorism Act, the ingredients of an act of terrorism involve, inter alia, the doing of anything that causes death; grievous violence against a person or grievous bodily injury or harm to a person; grievous damage to property or the doing of anything that is likely to cause death or endangers a person’s life.
The components of a terrorist act, under the Anti-Terrorism Act, may also involve taking the law in one’s own hand, award of any punishment by an organisation, individual or group whatsoever, not recognised by the law, with a view to coerce, intimidate or terrorise public, individuals, groups, communities, government officials and institutions, including law enforcement agencies beyond the purview of the law of the land; or involve firing on religious congregations, mosques, imambargahs, churches, temples and all other places of worship, or random firing to spread panic, or involve any forcible takeover of mosques or other places of worship.
Again, it is easy to see how the acts of firing at a public place/road resulting in loss of human life can be said to constitute acts of terrorism for the purposes of the Anti-Terrorism Act. Whether, as a general concept, some of us believe that such acts are simply acts of murder and not terrorism is irrelevant until the current definition of terrorism is applicable under the laws of Pakistan.
An important reason for ensuring that offences of the nature described at the beginning of this article are tried under the Anti-Terrorism Act is to ensure that these are treated as offences against the state and hence not capable of being dropped by the legal heirs of the deceased victims. If these are treated as cases of murder only, as the Islamabad High Court has perhaps done in the case of Mumtaz Qadri, then the burden falls on the family of the deceased to continue the legal battle or accept settlement and compromise. This is an unfair and unrealistic burden especially when the deceased is a 16-year-old orphan or a young motorcyclist and the accused have the unfair advantage of money, force and political influence. The Taseer family may have the resources and the personal and official protection to publicly refuse any offers of settlement but most others will not be in a similar position.
The Anti-Terrorism Act may not be the best piece of legislation in Pakistan but let’s try to use it to achieve some good results for the society at large before the kith and kin of the accused are once again voted into power to change such legislation to suit their own circumstances.
