What does the Sahiwal tragedy tell us about the state of the nation? Because this was not an isolated incident; howsoever excruciating it might have been, our capacity to fully grasp its meaning has clearly diminished. We have been conditioned to live in a land where laws are only perfunctorily and selectively enforced, there is little respect for human life. and wielders of power enjoy unspecified privileges and immunities.
At least partially, we live in a Hobbesian world, out of step with the rest of the modern and civilised communities. We have ample evidence to show that we are lagging behind in the social sector. In many areas, our South Asian neighbours are marching ahead of us. Unfortunately, this is something that we tend to ignore because of our prescribed sense of national pride.
A week has passed since Sahiwal. Hence, I need not bring up the sordid details of how they initially told lies and then tried to cover it up and have still not come clean about all the facts. During this week, the ignominy of how an elite force of the Punjab police murdered four unarmed people, including a woman and a teenage girl, and made an attempt to show that it was an ‘encounter’.
During this week, there has been an extensive coverage of the incident. There has been a flurry of comments on how the blundering Punjab government has responded. A mini-budget and a fresh tide of toxic politics have not been able to shift the nation’s attention from the human aspects of the Sahiwal extrajudicial killings.
At the same time, however, we have no assessment of how this incident may have influenced the emotions and thoughts of ordinary citizens. It is not difficult to imagine that people feel highly insecure and vulnerable against the backdrop of all these stories of not just so-called encounter killings, but also of enforced disappearances and other injustices.
Incidentally, we have a judgment of an anti-terrorism court in Karachi, delivered on Thursday that further enhances the significance of the Sahiwal incident. That it refers to the extrajudicial murder of Naqeebullah Mehsud is something that, in fact, is larger than what happened in Sahiwal one week ago.
What began as a protest against Naqeebullah’s murder has expanded into a civil society protest that has the potential of leaving its mark on the emerging national scenario. The Pashtun voice that has gained unanticipated strength is seen by some observers as a silver lining in the grim situation that has lingered across the country.
Anyway, this anti-terrorism court has quashed five cases registered against Naqeebullah and three others after accepting a police report that has found them innocent. The fact that Naqeebullah and his friends were innocent and were killed in a fake encounter had already been established.
As a news item published on Friday stated, the investigation report said “that the shootout was fake and baseless and the victims were innocent as it was a case of extrajudicial killings and a case was also lodged against the police party for framing the victims in forged cases”.
It was initially claimed by the then SHO of Shah Latif Town police station that he along with his team was patrolling the area when he got a tip-off about the presence of alleged terrorists of Daesh and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in an abandoned poultry farm. So, they cordoned off the area but the alleged terrorists opened fire and hurled hand grenades at the police party and were killed in the shootout.
I have quoted this passage only to show how imaginary stories are sometimes woven to camouflage plain murder and we know that some of them do get away with it. Under the spotlight in this and many other cases is the ‘celebrated’ police officer Rao Anwar.
The inquiry report said that the criminal record produced by Rao Anwar was not of Naqeebullah. It added that since Rao Anwar remained posted in Malir district for more than six years in different stints, there was extreme fear among witnesses. They worried about their security and were afraid to cooperate during the inquiry against the police.
The Rao Anwar saga is, as they say, stranger than fiction and portrays one aspect of the reality of our existence. I recall a remarkable investigative story published by Dawn in February last year, in the wake of the Naqeebullah affair, with the heading: ‘Rao Anwar and the killing fields of Karachi’.
It presented some incredible details. It said: “According to data from the home department, aside from encounters in which Rao was involved, there were in all of Karachi at least 304 encounters in 2017, resulting in 170 deaths, down from a high of 1,719 such incidents in 2014 with 699 deaths”.
The report quoted a police official that “Rao was running a multi-billion rupee criminal empire from his office in Malir. The district was his fiefdom. There was a team who located the people, taking one lakh from one, Rs 15 lakh from another, dispatching some. It was total lawlessness”.
So, how does one come to terms with these glimpses of what can happen in this country? Rao Anwar’s is an unfinished story. It is the same with Sahiwal. Every time an atrocity of this magnitude comes to light, there is noise and thunder about the urgency of undertaking reforms in the police and the justice systems. This is what they are doing now. We still hear some arguments in defence of extrajudicial killings to restore order because the entire structure of criminal justice is broken.
What is totally demoralising is that no radical change is initiated, even when incidents that have the attributes of a catalyst take place. For example, the unbelievable massacre of our schoolchildren at Army Public School in Peshawar should have changed Pakistan. Yes, a National Action Plan was readily formed and a constitutional amendment was made to establish military courts. But what has changed since December 16, 2014?
Look around when you are out in the open. We are surrounded by men in uniform who are armed. Elaborate security arrangements are in place everywhere. Yet, we feel insecure.
And how can we, when we have seen what trained police functionaries can do? Many years ago, after a bloodbath in Karachi, I had quoted this Tennyson stanza: “So runs my dream: but what am I?/An infant crying in the night:/An infant crying for the light;/And with no language but a cry”.
The writer is a senior journalist.
Email: ghazi_salahuddinhotmail.com