JIT report: should be taken to logical conclusion

Islamabad diary
The Joint Investigation Team report into the Baldia Town factory fire now placed before a division bench of the Sindh High Court is incomplete. It relies heavily, if not exclusively, on the testimony of one person, Rizwan Qureshi, said in the report to be a hit-man of a political party.
No marks for guessing which political party is implied. The report is all about the MQM. The factory fire – which led to the burning alive of over 250 factory workers – was the horrific sequel, it says, to a tale of extortion starting from a party high-up. The factory owners sought the help of a party sector commander to appeal to party headquarters. Far from this intercession having any effect, the sector commander was summarily dismissed and his successor tasked with pursuing the extortion demand. When the money was still not paid, the new sector commander – name Bhola – with his accomplices set fire to the factory, with the aid of chemical substances.
The money demanded was Rs20 crore. After the fire, with the factory owners in jail and their bail before arrest refused, a front-man of the aforementioned party high-up collected Rs15 crore from them to have the case against them quashed. In other words, the factory owners had to seek relief from the same atar-ka-launda responsible for their misery in the first place. Mir’s famous verse never had a more poignant application.
But all this is based upon the testimony of one man, Rizwan Qureshi, arrested in 2013 on another charge and coming up with his confession regarding the factory case in the course of his interrogation. The report based on his disclosure has been submitted only now, with the division bench ordering that it be made part of the case file. The trial court has been directed to conclude the trial within one year of this order.
Wouldn’t it have been more in the fitness of things if their lordships had asked the JIT to connect the various loose ends of this story, and there are many in it, and seek supporting or corroborative evidence for the allegations made? As they stand it is doubtful if Qureshi’s disclosures would be able to stand in court. Shouldn’t the first sector commander, Asghar, and his brother Majid who also figures in this story, be questioned? What about Bhola? What about the party high-up, said to be the don behind this whole shocking affair?
A provincial minister is said to have ensured the cancellation of the pre-arrest bail of the factory owners. Who’s he? And the front-man who picked up the 15 crores, what about his whereabouts? Only when answers to these questions are found will Qureshi’s testimony be of use in court.
But let’s wave illusions aside. Let’s not expect the PPP-led Sindh government to bestir itself in this matter. The PPP is slave to its requirements and expediencies. At a time when it is trying to mend matters with the MQM, no one in his right mind can expect it to rake over the embers of the factory fire. Two-hundred-and-fifty poor souls incinerated…too bad and may their souls rest in peace. But there are other things to consider. No, the responsibility for turning Qureshi’s disclosures into evidence that can form the basis of a proper challan rests 1) on the Rangers who are presently conducting anti-terrorist operations in Karachi and 2) on the Sindh High Court which has thought fit to take up this case.
No police investigating officer (IO) dare probe this matter deeply. He wouldn’t have the resources, nor the clout and independence. Only the JIT, which includes representative of ISI and MI, can ensure a proper investigation, to prove or disprove Qureshi’s sensational disclosures. Granted, blighted factory workers don’t amount to much in the Islamic Republic. Wretched of the earth applies to them if to anyone. But the sheer horror of this event demands some accountability…unless of course we are past all sense of shame.
Empty outrage we can put on hold for the time being. What is needed is a proper investigation, not on the lines of the Model Town firing incident – whatever’s happened to that? – but a painstaking probe, unbiased, without preconceptions of guilt or innocence, and not afraid to touch holy cows should they come in the way.
The stakes are high, as are the risks, no denying this. When it comes to Karachi and its established powers the use of violence and the shutting down of the entire city are but small calls away. All the same, whichever way we look at it, this is not something to lightly sweep under the carpet. If there’s no truth to these allegations then this whole affair is grossly unfair to the MQM. But if there is some truth, then the whole of it needs to come out…else all our high protestations about wanting to eliminate terrorism would sound hollow.
Not to forget another point, if any case is fit for trial by military court, this is it. Pakistan’s problem is not just one brand of terrorism, covered in the garb of religion, but terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.
The MQM’s initial reaction recalls the lady in Hamlet who seemeth to protest too much. Perhaps it would serve its cause better if it were to calmly call not for a judicial commission – which can be a time-waster, to put it no stronger than this – but a thorough and clinical criminal investigation. Not by the Sindh police…alas, there won’t be much faith in that, but by the JIT with the Sindh police represented on it. No phrase is more popular with us than that old chestnut: doodh ka doodh, aur pani ka pani. No case calls out the louder for separating milk and water.
The big question of course is whether justice can trump the dictates or the requirements of power. In the Model Town firing case power is proving superior to justice – 14 shots at close range and scores injured by gunfire, yet no challan, no trial court, no calling of evidence. Instead one of the principal accused is appointed Pakistan’s ambassador to the World Trade Organisation, which is as fine an example of Pakistani justice as we are likely to get.
The Peshawar massacre of schoolchildren was again horrifying but there’s one difference: we know who the perpetrators are. Not only that…the perpetrators have brazenly accepted responsibility. Try looking for responsibility in the Model Town case. Try looking for it in the raging flames and the smouldering ashes of the Baldia Town factory fire.
Even if nothing comes of this investigation and it is left to dry on a clothesline, there may still be something good in all this. Key power players have seldom been questioned like this in Karachi before. When was the last time a Lyari don was recalled with the help of Interpol from Dubai? Are these just flashes in the pan we are seeing or a new seriousness in our fight against extremism and terrorism?
But the worrying thing is that these initiatives, even if they prove abortive, are all coming from the army, or auxiliaries under its wings like the Rangers. The civilian sphere continues to be bereft both of ideas and of the ability of doing things on its own. Will politics ever command the gun or is our collective wisdom only enough to ensure the continuation of what may be loosely called our garrison state?
Email: bhagwal63@gmail.com