Another deadline

Nearly three months after Naqeebullah Mehsud was gunned down in a fake police encounter, non-bailable warrants for the arrest of Rao Anwar and 14 other absconding officers are out, and the Supreme Court has given the Sindh IGP another deadline – till Monday – to arrest Anwar. At this point, it is clear that Anwar has no intention of turning himself in and the authorities seem equally uninterested in apprehending him. For all the information we have about the whereabouts of Anwar and his cohorts, they may already have fled the country. There have long been rumours about the patronage Anwar received from the highest levels of government and the state; his disappearance and the lack of urgency in locating him would seem to confirm that. If the courts are serious about tracking Anwar down and making him face the justice he so richly deserves, it would go beyond just issuing warrants that are ignored, and start hauling representatives of the state. In this age of mass surveillance, it defies belief that so many prominent men could just vanish. Those who are providing these absconders with protection are now equally culpable in the murders of Mehsud and more than 400 others believed to have been killed in extrajudicial encounters by Anwar.

Meanwhile, the Pakhtun Long March, which began in Islamabad and soon broadened to other parts of the country, continues. The immediate spur for the march was Mehsud’s killing, and the apprehension of Anwar is one of their main demands. How can anyone believe that any efforts will be made to address the long-term problems of discrimination against the Pakhtun community when the authorities can’t even arrest a man who is alleged to have murdered a person without any justification? The government cannot any longer claim with any plausibility that Rao Anwar was a rogue officer acting of his own volition. Anwar has been implicated in encounters in the past and quietly resumed his duties after short suspensions. This time, thanks to the efforts of the Pakhtun protesters, he was unable to escape public scrutiny. But he has managed to escape justice. As it becomes increasingly likely that Anwar has fled the country, perhaps the courts and our law-enforcement authorities may want to engage international organisations in helping extradite this rogue cop.