Rizwan Ghani
WHEN Americans came on roads against police abuses, Obama joined the protests instead of solving the perennial problem. After that he invited the race row sergeant for drink to White House to show solidarity with the police. Obama failed to bring police reforms and left the problem for his successor. Under Trump, policing has changed into national movement of “I can’t breathe” (George Floyd) and it has spread to major western countries in Europe. It has become international human rights movement and Callamard, UN Human Rights, called for radical changes to end police killings in the US. Our political leadership is following same policy on complex issues. In case of 3 JITs, a Federal Minister is urging the Supreme Court to take suo motu notice whereas first it was the responsibility of the successive Sindh CMs to help victims get justice and punish the criminals but it opted to ignore and block the report. PM has also been in power for nearly two years more than 20 months but no action has been taken on scores of such cases including Model Town Tragedy.
Undoubtedly, three JITs are political checkmate. Action on one inquiry could bring the other government down and so on. PM’s hands are tied because his government relies on its allies who are nominated in these JITs so to save his government top political leadership of Sindh government will continue to get away and actual criminals will keep avoiding accountability. It explains years of inaction on these reports. But if Sheikh Rashid’s claims of all institutions are on “One Page” are right then PM must bring all culprits to book without any delay. There is a lot of hue and cry in the media about circumstances of surfacing of one JIT report. PTI representative Bokhari cited many court judgments in a TV talk show to clarify that information is important for courts not the source. If government is cognizant of this legal reality then it must act on all JITs and Model Town report. Similarly, a Trump Administration report has blacklisted SSP Rao Anwar due to gross human rights violations. The report is based on alleged 190 fake police ‘encounters’ resulting in over 400 deaths. PM demanded for accountability of SSP in 2018 while visiting protest camp set up by Mehsud tribe near Super Highway. He said that all those 444 people killed in fake encounters should be investigated (January 28, 2018). People like Rao Anwar should be brought to justice and those who are at their back must also be reached out. He added that PTI is struggling against discriminatory system and the party was struggling against the present system that favors the influential. But PM did not talk about JITs during his last Sindh visit as if there was Punjab like compromise on Model Town. In Pakistan, it is common knowledge that SSP Anwar was right hand man of top PPP leadership. The US report like local media reported that Anwar lead network of police and criminal thugs who were allegedly responsible for extortion, land grabbing, narcotics, and murder. His alleged crimes are begging accountability in 21st century democracy from an Oxford educated PM and his cabinet filled with western qualified members including wife of self-confessed head of target killers to protect public not self like Obama and Trump.
Travel history of SSP showed that he travelled overseas without check. He and his family held Iqamas. It shows downside of violation of dual national law. Pakistan’s white collar criminals including politicians, government servants and businesses hide their stolen wealth overseas and use it to evade accountability. PM is fully aware of such criminal activities but he failed to take any concrete step to end such criminals’ hideouts and bring them to book including aggressive use of anti-corruption laws of UN, EU etc to recover stolen public assets from Europe, Gulf and the US. The EU was quick to ban PIA but it withdrew blacklist of such countries within 48 hours hosting criminals, their families with money stolen from public funds. PM instead of giving notice to such rogue Gulf and EU States for recovery of money resorted to begging which could have been avoided. The K-Electric debacle has shown how watchdogs including NEPRA have yet again failed to do their duties. Similarly, concerned Parliamentary Committees, Speaker Parliaments, EC, State Bank, FIA, Police, Intelligence setups, SECP etc are turning blind eye to such crimes in terms of oversight. The state and judiciary should monitor all of them including the politicians and political parties for blocking upholding rule of law so that they are held accountable as per law.
It is clear that PPP and PML (N) are saving their governments, parties and leaderships as part of CoD under 18th Amendment while PTI is using judiciary to continue in power for next 5 years without helping victims and upholding rule of law and continuing status quo. PM’s failure to visit SSP victims seeking justice during his last visit to Karachi is case in point. Finally, all this merits suo motu notice against PM, CMS and all others for undermining law, failing to serve victims and using politics to evade accountability. Ironically Eton and Oxford educated Johnson was fired thrice from his jobs for lying and as PM he has already taken many U-turns another word for lying so says the British media. Cameron opted to resign as PM than settling offshore accounts controversy. So much for this western qualified Oxford educated government after businessmen, feudal and religious leaders governments in the past.
—The writer is senior political analyst based in Islamabad.
