As citizens of Pakistan, we are deeply shocked by the attack on the Pakistan Institute of Cardiology by hordes of rogue lawyers on December 11, 2019. Has Pakistan been reduced to such an impoverished state of governance that it is now possible for any group with a few guns and a few hundred goons to launch terror attacks on any organisation, kill people, pull out oxygen masks from gasping patients, tear down operation theatres and set ablaze police vehicles? Has the state surrendered to lawless militias? Has the state voluntarily begun to inscribe its own epitaph?
Pakistan must restructure itself to ensure that the exercise of coercive power remains the monopoly of the state and is not handed over to criminal gangs. We urge the government to harness all its resources to identify each and every person engaged in this criminal attack and ensure that criminals receive the harshest punishments prescribed by the law. We also pray that the police forces, always falling short on such occasions, are radically reorganised and reformed. We appeal that all civilian weapons be withdrawn and all private armies disbanded (Article 256) to eliminate elements whose coercive force and criminal activities continue to cause irreparable harm to the people and state of Pakistan.
Naeem Sadiq
Citizens Against Weapons
Karachi
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