| June 22, 2002 | Saturday | Rabi-us-Sani 10, 1423 |
Call for change in police attitude: DATELINE FAISALABAD
Yasmeen Hameed steals the show: LAHORE LITERARY SCENE
THE Pakistani and Indian communities in Britain have taken a sigh of relief after signs that tension between India and Pakistan has somewhat lessened. The recent standoff had alarmed them: the main scare being that a conflict between the two countries could trigger a nuclear war.
THE two-day seminar on human rights and policing held here recently underlined the need for changing the attitude and style of working of the police.
London is home to tens of thousands of people of Indian and Pakistani origin. A very positive thing noticed during the recent standoff between the two countries was that both Pakistanis and Indians would not show their anger against each other but would rather share their worries over the crisis.
They were aware of the dangers of war and the consequences of nuclear exchange. The Indian and Pakistani communities live side by side in London and other cities of Britain but not a single incident of violence or even verbal abuse was reported from any parts of the country. It seems that liberal laws and tolerance of the Western world has had a positive affect on the once hostile communities of great Britain. This indeed is a very positive sign.
IMMIGRATION: Immigration and asylum is on top of the agenda at the European Council summit of EU leaders in Seville, which started on Friday. Like most European leaders, British Prime Minister Tony Blair wants to adopt a package aimed at strengthening the Union’s borders.
The leaders of Europe are worried that their failure to address the immigration issue would give an edge to ultra- nationalists and extremists. The rise of extremism in Europe has already been seen in the recent polls in France, Italy, Denmark and other European countries. On the eve of the Seville conference, Mr Blair said: “We need to show at Seville that those of us around the Council table are not only aware of the practical concerns that our citizens in Europe have over asylum and immigration but we can agree (to) at least some common practical action to tackle them.
“If we don’t, then my fear is that we leave the field open to those who don’t want to solve these problems but simply want to exploit them,” Mr Blair added.
There is no doubt that most European leaders share Mr Blair’s worries but evolving a uniform strategy to solve this problem is still a far cry. Only a few days back a number of European countries did not agree to Mr Blair’s proposal of imposing sanctions against states that don’t cooperate in halting the flow of illegal immigrants. To solve this problem, the European countries will have to adopt a uniform policy and will have to take practical steps to tackle the underlying issues that the extremists in Europe are exploiting. It is important to mention here that most people, except for a few anti-immigrants parties, are not against asylum seekers, but they want a system to deal with this issue.
One of the problems is that extremists and anti-immigrants parties have already made their way to governments in Europe. In a number of European countries far-right parties, which some times can be called extremists, are part of the coalition governments. These parties, though small, are affecting the immigration policies of governments. In the presence of these parties it would be very difficult to have a uniform immigration policy for Europe.
The purpose of the seminar was to impress upon the police that it was possible to conduct investigation without human rights violation. The Punjab inspector-general of police in his address raised the fundamental issue of sensitizing the police to human rights through awareness and better understanding. He spelled out the policy of the government and senior management of police in this regard — zero toleration of violation of human rights and transgression of the law.
Federal Law Minister Dr Khalid Ranjha opened the seminar with a thought-provoking sentence that “our surroundings dominate our conduct”. The atmosphere surrounding the police officers is one of low credibility. The environment is informed of a perception of police as an agency dealing in untruth. The public generally have no or very little confidence in the veracity of police-prepared documents like the case files and the daily diary. This pervasive distrust dictates and dominates the conduct of police. The need, therefore, is to reconstruct the collapsed credibility of the department. The credibility and sanctity of police documents must be restored. This is possible only when there is a ‘no’ to the loading and building of case files with procured and made-up evidence. The status of a police file must rise to that of a court file in terms of public confidence.
Courts should also have faith in a formal statement made by a police officer. The priority of the police at present is to see that every case reached conviction for which padding becomes inevitable. This attitude of mind has to be changed.
Brig Yaqoob Dogar (retired) in his paper “Minorities and human rights” expressed dissatisfaction over the human rights situation of minorities. They were subjected to abuse and maltreatment at the hands of police mainly because they were poor. They were under-represented in government services.
DIG Welfare Muhammad Iqbal delivered a speech on honour killings. He called “Karo kari”, killing of man and woman suspected of having illicit relation, a barbaric ritual. He said killing for honour was murder and must be treated as such.
DIG Headquarters Tariq Masood Khosa, speaking on “Police reforms in Pakistan — A human rights perspective” observed that “truth is the saviour of a police officer. Our feudal culture is responsible for the abuse of police. Only truthful police, free from political interference can protect human rights. At present, the collection of evidence, that is investigation, hinges on ‘confession’. Scientific know-how, circumstantial evidence and better training can help in improving the human rights situation”.
Journalist Shamsul Islam Naz in his paper “Police-media relations” said in a society wracked by the evil practice of getting registered bogus FIRs and getting opponents implicated in false cases with the help of police, in a society in which the SHOs were at liberty to manipulate and make changes at will in applications of complainants and where the police were used for political and extra-official duties by the government, it was not possible to strike a harmonious relationship between the police and the press.
He said: “In a society where tolerance is non-existent, hatred, prejudices and groupings on sectarian and ethnic basis were dominant, where human beings are killed on minor issues, where people pay the police to implicate their opponents, friends, relatives and even kids for being administered the so-called “chhitrol” by a leather strap and where society is on a race to undermine the prestige, honour, dignity, respect and values of others through defamation, whispering campaign, how can human rights be protected? In a society where the police have no rights and are not considered human how can one expect them to protect human rights? In a society where the government uses the police for committing excesses against the political opponents, how can we expect human rights?”
Faisalabad DIG Talaat Mehmood spoke on the creation of “Citizen-Police Liaison Committee”. He said CPLC would not only modernize the police, but would also make the people feel more relaxed while going to police stations.
Advocate Mehwish Chaudhry spoke on “Child abuse and policing: lawyer’s perspective”. She highlighted the forms of violence used against women and girls and their consequences for them as members of society. With particular reference to the system of justice of which policing was an important part, she observed that cases of sexual abuse of minor girls were not taken seriously or investigated in a responsible manner. Their perusal in courts was also poor.
Sadia Farooq, a lecturer of the Government College for Women, spoke on “Community policing — a citizens point of view”. She said wilful omissions of the rulers had made the police to suffer both professionally as well as in terms of image. This had resulted in undermining the credibility of police to such an extent that a police officer in Pakistan was taken as a creature who could not speak the truth.
Dr Riaz Husain Qureshi, the vice-chancellor of the University of Agriculture, expressed his satisfaction over the arrangements and the receptivity of the audience.
The seminar recommended to the government to stop political interference in appointments, postings, transfers and other administrative matters of the Police Department, otherwise police reforms would come to naught; Punishment for false reporting, effectively using the devolution plan at union council level for reducing the gap between the police and the masses;
It condemned the policy of fake encounters, discrimination against minorities, use of third-degree methods, violation of human rights at police stations, police excesses, death and rape in police custody, transgression of law by police officials, unauthorized entry for search, wrongful arrest, cruel police attitude, Karo-Kari and honour killings.
It called for improvement in the attitude of the police and massive social reforms to ensure protection of human rights.
It recommended introduction of career planning in the Police Department for lower and upper echelons and improvement in the living and working conditions of police officials.
It recommended that sufficient means should be provided to the investigation officers to conduct cumbersome investigation on scientific lines. Coordination of police with other agencies for better investigation, provision of forensic laboratories and other equipment to investigate cases by employing modern techniques, instead of resorting to third degree methods, and community based policing for reducing crime was recommended.
The seminar observed that interaction between the police and public needed to be enhanced for better understanding.
PICK of the performers was Yasmeen Hameed last Tuesday. It was the monthly readings session of the Lahore Arts Forum and she was there to participate in it. These readings sessions have now been going on for years and Yasmeen Hameed can look back with some satisfaction for being among those who took part in the inaugural session. As Muzaffar Ghaffar, the moving spirit behind LEAF, remarked that day, Yasmeen is part of the history of the forum.
The veteran short story writer and novelist, Intezar Husain, was also on the programme for the evening but could not make it because of the illness of his wife. Anyway, Karamat Bukhari, the poet, happened to be among the audience, and was invited to fill the gap which he did admirably.
He had with him some copies of his fifth and latest collection of verse, Dasht-i-Arzoo, for presenting it to friends. His popular ghazal, kisi ka ghar jala deinay se pehlay, was greatly appreciated.
One copy of the collection ultimately ended up with me and another with the US-based Pakistani poet, Sardar Soz, who was also there. He is in town for a month or so to get two of his collections published, one of which is exclusively of devotional poetry. His first collection, Soz-i-Dil, a wide-bodied de luxe edition, was published two years ago.
As is quite known by now, these readings sessions happen to be trilingual. But somehow the English slot had not been catered for that evening. Muzaffar Ghaffar did try to entice the two English poets sitting among the audience to come up and recite something but they had not come prepared for that. But Muzaffar Ghaffar remained adamant and succeeded in making the session trilingual by reading out one of his own five-liners.
That evening while the readings of Yasmeen and Karamat were in Urdu, Ustad Parvez Paras had been invited to read his Punjabi poetry. He did not fail to impress in that role. But then he is better known as a music maestro and was, therefore, asked to handle the arts capsule as well. As such, when handed over the mike towards the end of the session, he delivered a long discourse on different types and modes of music and played recorded songs to demonstrate their impact. During his talk he traced the history of music from its origin to the present day and explained the different states through which it had passed. At the end of his talk one pupil of his presented a kafi and another sang a thumri. But the ustad did not lag behind; he presented a kahyal.
However, as I have said in the beginning, it was Yasmeen Hameed who stole the show that evening with her poetry. She read out three nazms, under the headings, Eik aur din guzar gaya, Ghanay peepal and Abhi mein jaagti hun, but being a ghazal fan it were those which appealed to me most. Just note the spontaneity in these lines:
Jaisay gum ho gaee shanakht meri
Ab koi mujh ko dhoondta bhi nahin
Jis se rehnay lagay gilay mujh ko
Voh abhi mujh ko janta bhi nahin
Aisa khamosh bhi nahin lagta
Aur kuch munh say bolta bhi nahin.
Yasmeen was also kind enough that evening to present me her fourth, and latest, collection of verse, Fana bhi eik sarab. It has been tastefully produced by Alhamd Publications of Lahore. But what I found special about the book was the thought provoking flap written by Yasmeen herself.
The audience in the Alhamra Cultural Complex hall that evening was rather small initially but gradually the seats started to fill up. I wish we could pay more attention to punctuality.
SOME TIME ago I had written about a book titled, Of Nawabs and Nightingales. It is written by Moosa Raza, an Indian Muslim who belongs to his country’s administrative service and rose to be a fedfederal secretary. I had then said that “I went through its 200 pages in one sitting probably because I had never read better English by an Indian bureaucrat. “The book is based on the experiences of the bureaucrat during the early period of his service and makes interesting reading.
I have now received an Urdu translation of that book. Under the title, Bulbulein Nawab ki and published by Fazlisons of Karachi. The translator is Shah Mohiul Haq Farooqi and I am writing this piece only to pay him a compliment. Translating and remaining close to the spirit of the original is a difficult task. But in this particular case the translator has succeeded in maintaining the reader’s interest throughout the narrative and maintained the candour of the original.
IN my column on classical Punjabi poetry last week, I had quoted Prof Gilani Kamran who said that Bulleh Shah was not like the mystics who believed in retreat from life. Unfortunately the word ‘not’ was missing from what appeared in print, thereby changing the entire meaning of the sentence. — ASHFAQUE NAQVI