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july
11 Still
a bumpy ride Yeh
Woh Not the best time to be ill Caught
in the crossfire Yet
another victim
july
11 As the World Population Day approaches on July 13, Dr Farid Midhet is extremely pessimistic when he says: "Pakistan's family planning programme is a story of failures". A demographer and founder of Safe Motherhood Pakistan, Midhet has every reason to feel dejected. Pakistan's health indicators call for no celebration. In the 1970s, recalls Midhet, Pakistan's under-five mortality rate was the lowest among its neighbours except Sri Lanka and the number of children a woman could have (total fertility rate) was comparable to India and Iran. Over the years, various governments in Pakistan have tried newer approaches to bring down the size of population. There have been a plethora of policies and programmes to stem the population explosion, but women in Pakistan continue to have about four babies on an average. The Pakistan Demographic
and Health Survey 2006-7 described that approximately 22 per cent of married
women of reproductive ages in Pakistan use a modern contraceptive method
(with 8 per cent using traditional methods). With a whopping 84 per cent of Pakistani women not using any modern family planning (FP) methods, bringing down the population figures is an uphill task. But Pakistan is not the only country that should be worrying about enough food to go around. On July 11, when world leaders converge in London for a global summit on family planning, they aim to raise "unprecedented political commitment and resources" to expand access to family planning information, services and supplies in developing countries. By the turn of the year, the global population is projected to rise to 7 billion and if the trend continues it will become 9 billion in 2050, raising fears of a Malthusian catastrophe if population overshoots resources. Saba Nisreen, 37, mother of two daughters, is a housemaid. She does not want any more children but does not use any contraception. She is aware of three FP methods - injectibles, oral pill and condoms. She would like to use them but doesn't. "I just meet my husband twice in a month so I don't want to take pills every day," she responds when asked why she does not resort to FP if her family is complete. "I have never asked my husband to use a condom, I can't," she says shyly, adding: "I tried pills after my first child to space but I developed a cyst in my ovary and the doctor said it could be because of that. My sister-in-law bled so heavily after the injection that I don't want to take that risk." She had not heard of the intrauterine contraceptive device. "Many Pakistani women and men regard continuing contraceptive practices more threatening to their health than an occasional induced abortion," states the government's Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) report. "No amount of contraception supplies in population welfare centres will help if women are not convinced to use them," says Dr Ayesha Khan, who heads Research and Development Solutions (RADS) in Islamabad. "They don't have anyone to turn to for guidance when it comes to seeking FP services," she said. According to her, one of the biggest barriers cited in the recent autonomous government-run Lady Health Workers programmes's assessment report to increased use of FP are the Lady Health Workers (LHW) themselves who provide either no or a very rushed counselling of not more than four minutes. "They are bogged down with accomplishing too much!" The LHW programme, which started in 1994, has expanded over the years to an army of almost 100,000 females who visit women door-to-door providing temporary methods - condoms, injections and pills. "The LHWs spend less than two per cent of their time in FP counselling and service provision when it should take up 60 per cent of their time!" Citing the policy briefs http://www.resdev.org/e2pa that RADS has come up with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Khan says six million Pakistani couples want FP services. The public sector through the Ministry/Department of Health and Ministry/Department of Population Welfare covers just 33 per cent or 1 million of this population, 15 per cent or 440,000 couples go to the private sector (non-governmental organisations), but 53 per cent, making up almost 1.5 million, have to buy the FP service. "Articulating a policy is one thing, its implementation entirely another," says Dr Sania Nishtar, president of Heartfile, considered a powerful voice for health policy in Pakistan. "The state doesn't have the institutional rigour to implement the commitments embodied in this framework," she said referring to the newest National Population Policy 2010. "The health sector has failed the people and its managers have not been able to oversee and implement even one programme properly," said Dr Zulfikar Bhutta, perhaps with the exception of the Lady Health Workers programme. Bhutta, who is one of the seven members of Independent Expert Review Group (IERG) for maternal and child health for the UN Secretary General and also co-chair of Countdown to 2015, a global scientific and advocacy group tracking progress towards Goal 5, says in many key areas, no reasonable programmes have ever been developed or implemented. Giving the example of nutrition, he said Pakistan had some of the poorest nutrition indicators in the whole of South and South-East Asia "even worse than countries like Laos and Cambodia." In addition, Bhutta is sceptical about Pakistan achieving the Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5. "Frankly, we will not and more distressingly, no one from within the political elite cares if we don't!" "Unless there is a political will to do so and both the government and the opposition turn their attention away from the few hundred meters strip between the parliament and Supreme Court, and the provinces stop squabbling, maternal health will remain where it is," he said. Reducing under-five mortality by two-thirds and maternal mortality by three-quarters are fourth and fifth among the eight MDGs. Dr Zeba Sathar, country director of the Population Council, on the other hand, is quite optimistic that the "conversation around family planning" has finally begun. She finds a "subtle but positive" change. "There is a growing realisation among the health and planning sectors of the dividends achieved if we reduce unintended pregnancies and female mortality." "We may not meet the MDGs by 2015, but perhaps we could strive to meet them by 2018 or even 2020," she said. "The overall health system is strengthening and bringing reproductive health and family planning into the fold of the health sector was paramount. It's half; no more than half the job done!" Now that the "dust has settled" around the devolution after the passage of the 18th Amendment, Sathar also feels it will be easier to discuss the population issues with the provinces. "If the flow of funds from the federal to provincial levels is smooth, much can be achieved."
Still
a bumpy ride Pakistan will
rightly tout a tactical gain after Hillary Clinton’s “sorry” over the
Salala incident and project resumption of US-Nato supplies via GLOC as a
goodwill gesture by a “responsible global player”. But the real test lies
ahead; can Pakistan really think beyond tactics, and can it translate
tactical gains in long term strategic advantages? Despite the resumption of
the ground lines of communication (GLOC), the promised “reset” for an
enduring, friction-free partnership is not likely to come about even in the
medium term. It is likely to remain hostage to multiple factors including
Pakistan’s perceived long-term interests which are at variance with the
short-term geo-political objectives of the United States. None seem to be able to
cancel out other’s interests in favour of a mutually agreeable
collaborative framework — at least for the time being. What we have seen
from both sides is brinkmanship at best. Let us see why? Little over two years ago,
an advisor to the State Department surprised many when he told a gathering of
Pakistani, Afghan, Indian and British intellectuals in London that
“basically the sole super power status shapes the American attitude —
that often comes across as arrogance.” You shall have to live with it, he
said. This sounds so true when
judged to the context of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s recent statements
in New Delhi, Kabul (June 6-7) and Washington that offer a good corroboration
of what the advisor said in London. “We have made clear to
the Pakistanis that the United States of America is going to defend ourselves
against those who attack us,” Panetta told an audience at Institute for
Defense Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. “This is not just about protecting
the United States. It’s also about protecting Pakistan. And we have made it
very clear that we are going to continue to defend ourselves.”(New Delhi
June 6, 2012). Next day in Kabul, Panetta
thundered further when he voiced “increasing concern” that safe havens
exist, and those like the Haqqanis make use of that to attack our forces. “We are reaching the
limits of our patience for that reason. It is extremely important for
Pakistan to take action to prevent [giving] the Haqqanis safe havens, and for
terrorists to use their country as a safety net to conduct attacks on our
forces.” Panetta’s pronouncements
underscored the deep-seated suspicion of Pakistan, and the propensity within
the administration to run down the country by declaring it
“incorrigible”. That is why on June 23, the Defence Secretary ruled out
an apology, saying “past expressions of regret and condolences were
enough”. Seen against this context,
it seems, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s expression of “sorry” on
July 3 clearly flew in the face of the man who heads the Pentagon — the
symbol of the American security establishment. On the face of it, the
State Department triumphed over Pentagon. In Pakistan, the government and the
military spoke in unison and thus moved on, although mystery still surrounds
the entire episode and little is known about the details of the deal. But we in Pakistan must be
clear; Clinton’s “sorry” will hardly remove the multilateral mistrust
of Pakistan that flows from the latter’s alleged nexus with the Afghan
Taliban, the Haqqanis, and some Pakistani militant groups. That is why,
Carolyn Brooks, a political analyst and a former insider, believes that “if
the US et al. would stop badgering Pakistan about Haqqani, I am sure that
Pakistan would gladly give him up but unfortunately the US knows nothing of
“face”, and Pakistan still hasn’t recovered “face” since the Nato
incident last November and the unfortunate deaths of the Pakistani troops.”
Brooks, who used to run a
blog “Critical American Thinker”, in a reference to the Pakistani
security establishment’s reactive bent of mind, also insists that
“Pakistan needs to find a way to come into more of a Western way of
thinking if it wants to continue to receive MONEY from the West. “Money
talks, bullshit walks”. Old American adage. It is just a fact of life.” What she probably means by
the western way of thinking is for Pakistan to realise that American and
Indian presence in Afghanistan is now almost a constant just as much as
Pakistan’s interest in Afghanistan because of the inalienable geographical
proximity. Pakistan’s security establishment shall have to factor that in
when thinking of its engagement with Kabul. Washington and Kabul shall also
have to accord recognition to this Pakistani interest. This might create
middle ground for all the four countries to hammer out a mutually acceptable
collaborative framework, which could also help remove mutual mistrust. Without necessarily
agreeing to all these points, let us face the reality; Pakistani economy is
in doldrums and its impact will be visible in a few years as the population
and the army of unemployed swell. For turning it around, Pakistan needs
international goodwill and no hostility. Seen against this backdrop,
it becomes evident that a perennial state of conflict, state of denial and
inflated egos could only spell more economic disaster, rather than improving
the plight of the teeming millions in this country. And the disaster will be
even more pressing for the military establishment itself. Unless it wants to
turn the country into another Afghanistan, Sudan or Somalia, the army and its
supporters in the civilian government shall have to shun reactive mode and
get into a pro-active, more calculated economy-oriented policy framework that
draws support from the US and its allies rather than indignation and
condemnation. Also, if the main contours
of Pakistan’s so-called defense doctrine don’t change, the multilateral
mistrust out of Washington, New Delhi and Kabul in particular will keep
defining its external relations for the worse. The writer is executive
director, Centre for Research and Security Studies, Islamabad and has
authored ‘Pakistan — Before and After Osama bin Laden’, Rolli Books,
New Delhi.
Yeh
Woh The hero-in-trouble
has been pleading for decades in court rooms across the subcontinent, of
justice delayed and therefore denied. ‘There’s no relief for the poor
applicant my lord, all he gets from the honourable court is … another date.
Date after date …’ goes the dialogue repeated with varying degree of
emotions in scores of Urdu and Hindi language films. Since we use (mostly Hindi)
films as a tool of education — in matters of fashion, dance, and music as
much as to understand love, history and law — we tend to believe the
governments, or more specifically their judicial systems, are the guilty
party when it comes to ridiculously long trial period for routine disputes of
civil and criminal nature, and the resulting backlog of cases that runs in
millions. It’s for law
professionals to debate the rights and wrongs of laid down procedures and
suggest how the institutional hurdles can be removed for making dispensation
of justice a timely and inexpensive service for the citizenry. Legal
procedures in Pakistan give all the protection to the accused — the more
powerful the accused, the more forcefully they demand their rights, and more
often do they receive — but the complainant gets the sharp end of the
stick, especially if they happen to be the type that’ll not grease palms
and won’t use connections to influence the judges. Oh yes, they can be
influenced. ‘Every court can be bought; what varies is the asking price. If
it’s a civil court the price is in thousands, a sessions court can fetch
lakhs and if the case ends up in superior courts, the price will jump to
crores,’ says a businessman who left Pakistan with his family several years
ago while his name was on the Exit Control List for committing land fraud. Yes, the legal system is
rotten at the institutional level, but from a litigant’s point of view the
system — the government, the judge and the court administration — is only
responsible for one third of the delays; the rest are caused by lawyers who
charge money to represent a litigant, and who are bound by their own
professional ethics to uphold the law and defend the rights of their client. If every judge starts their
day with a cause list of a couple of hundred cases, and manages to hear them,
it is because one or both lawyers in a majority of cases do not show up;
those who appear, ask for adjournment on one pretext or the other. And then
there are strikes. Every day of the year some or the other bars boycott the
courts for a reason that has nothing to do with their clients. The client —
you, and me, and your in-laws — who happens to be the paymaster, is also
the biggest loser in this transaction. Forget medical doctors and
their juvenile delinquency that they call Young Doctors Association; lawyers
are the group of professionals that holds the distinction of striking more
than working in any calendar year since 2007. Two divisions of Punjab have
their lawyers regularly strike two days a week for the past couple of years.
The lawyers in one city boycotted courts for a full six months without break.
And then there are impromptu strikes, like when one or more lawyers are
attacked, anywhere, for whatever reason, personal or professional. So eager
are they to skip work that the news of a fellow lawyer gunned down or roughed
up is greeted like Ziaul Haq’s plane crash — one less undesirable person
in the world, and one more welcome holiday from work. Each day’s strike by
lawyers prolongs the client’s case by a couple of months. Five strikes add
a year. Another year of misery, uncertainty, frustration, ruined
relationships, fear, intimidation … and a constant source of irritation for
the client. Industrial action was once
considered the domain of illiterate factory workers. Their strike hurt no one
but the management, and their community’s moral support for their demands
gave them leverage in their negotiations. Doctors’ and lawyers’ strike
hurts only the common people. Having a patient die for not getting timely
attention and someone committing suicide after being denied justice, are
merely bargaining chips in the game of give-and-take played between
well-educated professionals and the government. There are no winners in
this game though. You can’t win rights for yourself by trampling the rights
of those you are responsible towards. And you can’t have many friends and
supporters among the communities who have suffered the collateral damage of
these strikes. masudalam@yahoo.com
issue Public hospitals across
Punjab remained crippled past fortnight as thousands of young doctors went on
strike, demanding a formal service structure. Outdoor patients were left
without treatment; only those needing emergency care were attended to. A war
of words continued between the young doctors and the Punjab government health
officials, till a crackdown on striking doctors was ordered and arrests made. It certainly wasn’t the
best of times to be ill. After the arrests, young
doctors, led by the office-bearers of the Young Doctors’ Association (YDA),
walked out of the emergency departments in protest. Resultantly, the
emergency wards, especially that of the Punjab Institute of Cardiology,
“functioned at one-third of its strength, with only five senior doctors out
of the usual 20 or so young doctors on duty,” said Dr Junaid Khan,
assistant professor cardiac surgery. He was seemingly disarrayed, for
treating emergency heart patients is not his specialisation. He is a surgeon,
a Grade 18 official, with no less than 18 years of work experience. No wonder
he was at a loss with a patient that complained of “dil ghabrana”
(uneasiness). Situation in other
hospitals was as demanding. Professor Javed Akram, principal and CEO Allama
Iqbal Medical College and Jinnah Hospital Complex in Lahore, was on night
duty at the ICU — “so were my other senior colleagues,” he said. And the administration
offices of hospitals remained abuzz with walk-in interviewees, aspiring to
fill the positions left vacant by the protesting doctors. On the evening of July 4,
Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah claimed, after a two-hour meeting with
senior doctors negotiating with the government on behalf of the YDA, that the
doctors had ended their strike, and the cases against doctors would be
withdrawn and all those arrested freed. The YDA termed his
announcement a conspiracy. President YDA-Pakistan Dr Rana Sohail told The
News on Sunday, the association agreed to return to emergency wards after the
government assured arrested doctors would be released. “Some releases were
made. But eight doctors, wrongly accused of killing a child at Mayo Hospital,
were not released. The YDA feels betrayed. Surely they could have negotiated
with the family that registered the case.” And as before, senior
doctors and ad hoc appointees continued to serve in hospital wards. The association has long
pressed for a revised structure that: appoints every medical officer to Grade
18; equals honorarium of a graduate to that of a medical officer; and equals
the health professional allowance with basic income. “There is a real feeling
of despair among the doctors,” said Dr Rana Sohail. “We do need a service
structure to allow us to provide the standard of healthcare the people have a
right to expect. People in honourary positions must be paid, we must have at
least some criterion for promotions and health officials must be offered
health facilities — and the same perks and privileges as any civil
bureaucrat. Also, we have to learn to function on merit. Presently, the
system is ad hoc, it follows no principles and no professional ethics.” Support for the doctors’
actions did not come in short supply. The senior doctors and nurses showed
solidarity with the YDA. Also, it mustered support from doctors in other
provinces. But in response, the Punjab
government officials (supported by the media) portrayed doctors as greedy,
unrealistic and unethical. Some harsh words came from the law minister, who
reportedly said, “Doctors playing with the lives of patients did not
deserve sympathy… that young doctors will not be allowed to blackmail the
government”. He warned anyone disrupting peace of hospitals will be dealt
with an iron hand. Special Assistant to Chief
Minister on Health, Khwaja Salman Rafiq, while talking to a newspaper,
thought their demands were unfair, “[the government] has promoted 600
doctors, increased the number of posts, and raised their salary bill to Rs 24
billion a year from Rs8 billion in 2008.” “It is time we went
beyond the national pay scales and grades,” said a senior consultant
associated with a private hospital in Lahore who requested anonymity. “This
is fundamentally unworkable in a globalised world where the replacement value
of each of these persons is very different. So the doctors are right when
they ask for a grade since they think they put in additional years to get to
the starting point and so they can’t be the same as someone with fewer
years of education. They also contend that their ‘replacement value’ is
higher in present day context. Where they are wrong is in the expectation
that like the civil servants they can keep getting promotions in a ‘career
structure’. Growth and promotion in the health system has to be contingent
upon attaining higher qualifications and only then climbing the ladder.” He added the larger issue
is that the governmental salary structures and systems are not agile enough
to keep up with the changing supply-demand cycles of highly sought skilled
jobs and thus they ought to be dealt with in a market fashion and well away
from the national pay scales/grades. “I think the government knows this too
but just doesn’t have the money to buy this service.” Whatever the rights and
wrongs of the Punjab government-YDA dispute, Karachi-based Dr Shershah Syed
vehemently disagreed with the method the young doctors have adopted to
protest. “Doctors do not go on strikes. They cannot refuse to see
patients,” says Dr Shah, who is known for his work in maternal health and
obstetrics, and is the president of the Pakistan National Forum on Women’s
Health. Professor Javed Akram said
the government must ensure a doctor feels secure working in the country,
“else he will take up a position abroad”. To further secure the
doctors, Dr Shah said, “The government must revise the existing system, so
it is based on merit and audit. It violates the system ever so often by
appointing ad hoc officers. Now, tell me, how can ad hoc appointees, which
are in most cases favoured appointees, be audited or judged on merit.” Dr Shah suggests the YDA
should include the regular training for young doctors to its list of demands.
Stressing the point, he said, “doctors’ competency level is consistently
dropping. Earlier Pakistani doctors selected for the American residency
programmes would be in hundreds, and this year it’s a shameful 96. Clearly,
the crop of doctors that we are producing in our teaching hospitals is
failing to find international markets.” From a much larger
perspective, this present dispute undermines the perceived prestige of the
profession. The doctors must know that public confidence in them may be
damaged by this action. The government and the YDA must come up with a
negotiated settlement to resolve this crisis. As of today, Thursday July
5, the YDA agreed to return to duty at the emergencies of Cardiology
Institutes in Lahore, Multan and Faisalabad. But largely the Punjab
government-YDA deadlock continues.
Caught
in the crossfire It was a hot Sunday in Lahore on July 1. Yet the Minto Park was crowded. Tens of thousands of Shiites from all over Pakistan marched towards the Minar-e-Pakistan to give what they called a “message” of unity and strength to the state, government and its security and intelligence agencies and terrorists groups against the continuous target killing of their community members in different parts of the country. Carrying the flags of the newly-formed Shiite party — Majlis-e-Wahdat-ul-Muslimeen (MWM) — and posters of the assassinated Shiite community members in their hands, the crowd chanted slogans “Labaik Ya Hussain (AS)”. Highly charged groups from Karachi, Gilgit, Quetta, Kohistan and all over Punjab had been gathering under the shadow of Minar-e-Pakistan throughout the day to “show their love for Pakistan and condemn the target killings”. “The objective of the gathering was to show strength and tell the government to pay attention to the killings of our community members in Pakistan,” cleric Amin Shaheedi, deputy secretary general of the newly-formed MWM, tells TNS. At least 14 Shiites were killed in a recent attack on the Hazara Shiite community in Quetta. The responsibility for the attack on Hazara Shiite pilgrims’ bus on its way from Taftan, a border town between Iran and Pakistan, was claimed by defunct Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (an anti-Shiite organisation aligned with Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan under the umbrella of Al-Qaeda). This is the third major ambush since last year in which pilgrims to Iran have been killed. The killing of Shiites in Pakistan increased in the 1980s after the Iranian revolution and its feared impact and influence on the neighbouring Pakistan’s Shiite community. In Pakistan, the first
major attack on Shiite community was reported in 1963 in which more than 200
Shiites were massacred in a massive attack on the community in Therhi in
Khairpur, Sindh. In the 1980s, there was a huge attack on Gilgit-Baltistan in
which scores of Shiites were killed while their houses and crops were
destroyed by extremists. In the 1990s, defunct Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and its offshoot Lashkar-e-Jhangvi targeted dozens of Shiite community scholars, doctors, engineers and professionals. The killings continued in 2000 during the Pervez Musharraf regime and it spread to the tribal belt, Parachinar and Balochistan gradually as Taliban and their related factions got strength. The killing of Hazara Shiite community, according to different reports, began in the 1990s after the Afghan Jihad was over. This went on side by side with attacks on the Shiite community in the Kurram Agency, Gilgit-Baltistan and some cities of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa bordering the tribal areas. According to the figures compiled by the MWM, the number of Shiites killed in Balochistan in the past few years has crossed 800. The number of Shiites killed in Dera Ismail Khan is around 450, while more than 1550 have been killed in Parachinar in the past 15 years. At least 350 Shiites in Hangu and Kohat were killed while scores have been killed in target killing and bomb blasts in the Punjab. In Karachi, in the past 15 years, more than 850 Shiites have been killed which include over 50 doctors, a dozen senior government officers and bureaucrats and clerics. The MWM claims that around 250 Shiites are also “missing”. “Karachi is the largest Pakhtun city in the world. It is also the largest Shiite city in Pakistan. Karachi is the only city where the Shiites will respond by killing Sunni Deobandi rivals,” says noted writer and journalist Khaled Ahmed, adding, “What’s happening in Quetta is a foretaste of the coming civil war in Afghanistan in which Pakistan will have to intervene as it did in 1998 in the conquest of Mazar-e-Sharif.” “Mastung, a city of Balochistan and constituency of provincial chief minister, has become the hub of TTP terrorists where they also run their training camps, but nobody dares touch them,” says Maqsood Domki, a Quetta-based member of MWM, who was present in the recent gathering in Lahore. Balochistan and Iran share a long border with camps of many militant groups that target convoys of pilgrims. “The TTP’s presence in Balochistan is a major threat to the Shiite community. We feel helpless as the security and intelligence agencies seem disinterested in taking action against those groups. The criminal silence of security agencies exposes their nexus with pro-Taliban militants. Terrorists are free and we are at their mercy,” laments Domki. He says, “We have lost faith in judiciary. We are not getting justice from courts because they are freeing terrorists. Chief Justice of Pakistan, who takes suo moto notice on many other issues, is unable to see this massive target killing.” According to reports, as many as 50,000 Hazaras have left Balochistan for other areas and countries over the past few years. Khaled Ahmed thinks Shiites are being targeted in Quetta and Karachi because Taliban hold sway in these areas. “Taliban inside Afghanistan go to Quetta for resolving their differences because Quetta Shura is based there,” he says. “Hazaras are in majority in the Afghan National Army (ANA) and they are going to give a tough time to Pakistan in the coming Afghan civil war. Pakistani militants and non-state actors will have to help Taliban fight the ANA.” Ahmed says al-Qaeda is fighting a sectarian war against Iran in Iraq. “In Pakistan, it is leading Jundullah, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Tehreek-e-Taliban into the sectarian battlefield. In Afghanistan, most people think it is the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) which is doing all this.” He adds that media is also not free or independent because it is influenced by the presence of al-Qaeda and its affiliates in Pakistan. Ahmed links this target killing with the future geo-political situation and the situation after American withdrawal from Afghanistan. He fears that after the US withdrawal, another war will start in Afghanistan. “Pakistan will have to kill its Shiites to get India out of Afghanistan. The war in Afghanistan will be between Pakistani non-state actors and the Northern Alliance. The Shiites in Pakistan will be on the wrong side of the battlefront.” vaqargillani@gmail.com caption Lahore: Message of strength, unity.
Yet
another victim Last Tuesday
afternoon in Channi Goth, a far off village in Ahmad Pur Sharqia, district
Bahawalpur of southern Punjab, a mentally-challenged young man in his
twenties allegedly desecrated pages carrying religious text. This alarmed the villagers
present on the spot. Within no time, scores of people gathered and started to
beat him — some in the crowd were oblivious of his crime, yet they beat
him, report eye witnesses. In no time, echoes of
‘punish’ and ‘blasphemer’ started emanating from loudspeakers
installed in masjids. Those present on the scene
said the crowd was highly-charged and hence uncontrollable. It refused to
hand over the accused man to the police. Eventually, the police took hold of
him and shifted him to the local police station and lodged a blasphemy case
against him under Pakistan Penal Code Section 295-B for tearing pages of the
holy book. But, there was no
stopping the angry, charged mob. Angry mob of some 4,000
men, equipped with batons and bricks and stones and pistols, converged on the
Channi Goth police station — determined to punish the accused of alleged
blasphemy. Police struggled to control the mob that had turned violent — it
torched the police van and the building, broke the lock-up, dragged the
accused out, and lynched him to death. They later set the dead
body on fire. “The accused was
mentally-challenged. He was young and new in the area. Police did its best to
save him but the squad succumbed to the violent mob,” says Ahmad Ishaq
Jahangir, district police officer of Bahalwalpur. He says the mob comprised
about 4000 very angry men. “It was unruly,” he said.
Last month, in Quetta, a
man was killed in a mob attack on a police station holding a “mentally
retarded” man also suspected of desecrating the Holy Quran. A year and half
ago, former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer was shot dead in January by his
police bodyguards for opposing the blasphemy laws. His death was followed by
the assassination of country’s religious minorities affairs minister
Shahbaz Bhatti. Christians in Pakistan live
under a constant fear of being arrested under the controversial blasphemy
laws, which critics say are often misused to settle personal scores or family
feuds. While the media, especially vernacular media, keeps such incidents
under-reported or tilted in favour of those that stand firm in support of the
blasphemy laws. Director Human Rights
Commission of Pakistan, I. A. Rehman says, “Media wants to save its offices
from such mob psyche or indirectly backs such incidents — by becoming
silent.” Commenting on the tragic
incident of last week, he says authorities’ failure to prevent a horrendous
crime was not unexpected. A credible inquiry should be launched and its
findings made public. The government must not only compensate the family of
the deceased for its failure to protect the life of a man in police custody
from ‘mob justice’, but also take concrete measure to avoid such
unfortunate incidents in the future.” He says we have developed a
mob psyche which has become uncontrollable because the state or the
government has disassociated itself — to talk or address these sensitive
religious issues.” Rehman fears such anarchy
will become widespread in the coming years in the absence of discourse in the
society and in the presence of weak governments. — Waqar Gillani
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