The Model Town tragedy

The Model Town inquiry was an opportunity to lay bare the invidious excesses of a predatory state and the pernicious responses of a predatory society. It has been lost.

Given the inquiry report’s content, the real mystery is why the Punjab government sat on it for so long and fought tooth and nail to prevent it from seeing the light of day. The report is of no legal value. And given its perfunctory treatment of underlying issues including citizens’ right to life and dignity, abuse of executive authority, perversion of rule of law and rise of unruly mobs, any conversation based on its content would be equally cursory.

The overarching criticism that the inquiry’s terms of reference were restricted is unconvincing. The report quotes the terms as follows: “For making inquiry and to ascertain the facts and circumstances of the incident at Mihaj-ul-Quran Academy and Model Town Secretariat in Model Town, Lahore.” Could the canvas be any broader? The commission could have taken this inquisitorial process in the direction of its choosing and pronounced its findings and recommendations accordingly. The Quetta Inquiry Commission Report is a recent example of how that’s done. The ToRs aren’t the cause of a weak report.

Judicial inquiries are a bad idea to start with. The erudite judgment of the Lahore High Court authored by Justice Abid Aziz Sheikh that ordered the release of the report (and gives meaning to citizens’ right to information) states that a judicial inquiry is essentially the opinion of a judge on a matter of public importance for the executive to heed and for the public to consider but not for the courts to act upon. Notwithstanding the original purpose, the law enabling such inquiries was conceived at a time when the executive and judiciary had not been separated. It now seemingly falls foul of Article 175 of the constitution.

An argument advanced against the report’s release was that criminal cases in relation to Model Town incident are under trial and the report could influence their outcome. The LHC agreed that such influence would be impermissible. But went on to hold that trial courts would not be influenced by the report. It quotes Justice Cardozo, who had claimed that, “the great tides and currents which engulf the rest of men, do not turn aside in their cause, and pass the judges by.” Such optimism aside, there is little reason to distract judges from judging in order to engage them in inconsequential opinion writing.

Nudging the judiciary to engage in inquisitorial processes is unhelpful. Our common law based system is adversarial, and is guided by entrenched principles and inherent checks and balances. To switch to the adversarial system at whim out of the frustration that our systems are crumbling and dysfunctional doesn’t help. That neither judicial inquiries nor suo motus have produced sustainable dividends is proof. It would have been more purposeful to appoint a professional with administrative experience, integrity and intellect like IGP Tariq Khosa to deconstruct the Model Town tragedy.

The Model Town incident’s real issues are abuse of state authority for political ends, lack of executive accountability, usurpation of police autonomy by political masters and the role of the police as an instrument of persecution as opposed to protection. Had the report delved into them and explored if the Punjab government impinged on citizens’ fundamental rights to life, liberty, dignity, association, assembly and speech guaranteed by our constitution, and grilled the Punjab chief minister on how power and responsibility can be separated where 10 (or 14) precious lives have been lost, we might have been in the midst of a meaningful public debate.

While the report is equivocal, badly written and poorly reasoned, it insinuates that: (1) the Model Town operation was politically motivated and premeditated; (2) police action to remove encroachments outside TUQ’s office was unnecessary and illegal; (3) the Punjab government engaged in obstruction for justice by refusing to allow a wider inquiry; (4) Shahbaz Sharif never issued an order to the police to disengage and such position was an afterthought; (5) almost all government officials and especially police officials who appeared before the commission refused to speak the truth so as to save themselves and the Punjab government.

Montesquieu had cautioned that, “every man invested with power is liable to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go…To prevent this abuse, it is necessary from the nature of things that one power should be a check on another.” Whether it is the so-called anti-encroachment drive around TUQ’s secretariat days before he was set to launch a march against the PML-N government or abuse of CTD to threaten and intimidate the Pak-Turk Organization, the excesses of the Punjab government and the instances of abuse of police authority to pursue impermissible political objectives are innumerable.

Forget conspiracy to kill members of a political party. Let’s run with the benign explanation of the Model Town operation. What is the responsibility of a chief minister under whose watch and on whose behest is set in motion an administrative action that goes terribly wrong and claims precious lives? The constitution promised the victims that they wouldn’t be deprived of their lives or liberty, save in accordance with law. The promise was broken. Lives were taken and liberty usurped with impunity. Imagine the moral bankruptcy of a government whose CM and provincial law minister wish liability for such wrongs to stick to SHOs!

Is the police a mercenary force meant to secure partisan interests of the ruling clique? Sir Robert Mark, the noted commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, once clarified that, “the police are not servants of a government at any level. We do not act at the behest of a minister or any political party, not even the party in government. We act on behalf of the people as a whole.” When the Police Order 2002 was promulgated, its object was to “organize a police system which is politically neutral, non-authoritarian, accountable and responsive to the community, professionally efficient and which is an instrument of the rule of law.”

It was enacted to replace the Police Act, 1861, that organised the police as an instrument of colonial power to repress and control natives. Is it not ironical that in his initial phase of doing-the-right-thing, a dictator attempted to shape the police as a force compatible with democracy, but ever since our politicos (the flag-bearers of democracy and citizen empowerment) have been hacking at the operational, administrative and financial autonomy of the police? They have successfully reversed the gains made (at least on paper) and returned the police to being the instrument of repression that it was meant to be in a colonial state.

When the police are used as an instrument of repression they are denuded of the legitimacy that attaches to state action. The lawful response to an unlawful police operation is to approach the courts. But the outcomes produced by our justice system are often too little, too late. Established wisdom thus is that we live in a system that is responsive to force as opposed to laws. That is why we are witnessing the age of mobs. The state will strong-arm you if you are weak and acknowledge you as collateral damage if you are wronged. But it will respond, appease and cower if you are an anarchist leading a mob.

In a civilised country, individuals and mobs would be prosecuted and punished for assaulting police officers. In such a country the public would view the police as an instrument of the state and not one in employment of the ruling clique. In a civilised country, it would be politically unviable for an all-power chief minister to lay the blame of his incompetence (or complicity) on low-ranking police officials. In a civilised country, no one – irrespective of political affiliations – would be confused about right and wrong in an incident as dastardly as the Model Town killings.

The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad.

Email: sattar@post.harvard.edu