KARACHI, Aug 8: Beware of them. They can bewitch you into what appears a very profitable business but can land you into trouble:

They call themselves securities companies but are mere agents of some international brokerage houses set loose in Pakistan for flight of capital.

The word securities companies should not be confused with the legally recognized stock brokers of Pakistan.

“These companies are acting as fund managers that help people take foreign currency out of Pakistan in the name of investment,” says head of a currency brokerage, who declines to go on record.

“They are making foreign currency investment in international market on behalf of their customers. In some cases they are also providing an opportunity to small money changers to hedge their positions.”

They might be money changers then?

“Certainly not...they have not got any licence from the State Bank,” says a senior official of the State Bank, seeking anonymity.

“The SBP does not recognize them as money changers. In fact we are very much concerned about their way of operations,” he says, leaving it unclear whether the SBP is going to investigate their affairs.

“These so-called securities companies are in no way related to us,” declares Forex Association of Pakistan president Malik M. Bostan. “They are not our members and it is the responsibility of the SBP to ascertain their legal position.”

“I warn all those who are dealing with these companies to do so at their own risk. If they incur losses it is their headache.”

Losses people are incurring. Dawn investigation reveals that scores of ambitious men and women have lost tens of thousands of dollars to these companies that had promised them to manage their funds profitably but failed to do so.

This is what they do:

The so-called securities companies — half a dozen in number — get their clients open a foreign currency bank account. Then they ask them to transfer into their accounts a certain amount of foreign currency. They promise that this amount will be used as a base fund for making investment on their behalf into the world currency and stock markets. If the stocks or the currencies in which their money has been invested yields profit they would have it after paying a nominal commission to the securities companies. If the opposite happens they will have to bear the loss as well.

“Experience shows that small and medium sized depositors have lost. They have never gained anything out of these companies,” says a source close to one of these companies. “The big customers do get some benefit but they too incur huge losses at times,” he reveals.

A senior executive of a leading foreign bank said he knew this thing had been going on for quite some time. “They are basically margin traders or leverage traders as we call them. They do trade on your behalf in the international market but how on earth you can ascertain their statements regarding profit or loss. Theirs is a very secretive world.”

“But equally mysterious are the individuals that come to us,” says an employee of one of the five top so-called securities companies operating here.

“Most of the people who come to these companies know fairly well that their money will be used in the international market for speculation. But you know the money they place with these companies is not white.”

Dawn investigation reveals that quite a number of small and big money changers are also regular clients of these companies — most of them located in Clifton. These money changers buy and sell foreign currencies as usual in the market but as the sun sets they come to any of these campiness to strike deals with them. “In fact these (so-called securities) companies sometimes give quite a fair return...up to 50 per cent, whereas normal currency trading does not yield such a high profit,” concedes a money changer in Saddar.

“If a money changer deals with these companies legally for hedging his risk I do not see any harm in it,” says Malik M. Bostan. “But if a law is broken and something unscrupulous is done that is not fair.”

THE Quran says “He raised the heavens high and set the balance” (55:7) which means that after creating the heavens, namely, all the stars, planets and galaxies, Allah set them in proper order so as to establish and maintain necessary balance and equilibrium in the system.

It is because of this balance that the system has been functioning with harmony and it is because of such harmony that it has survived for billions of years. The Quran, therefore, tells us to maintain a similar balance in our own spheres of activities and not to disturb it (55:8).

The word “balance”, among other things, implies doing justice. This is evident from another Quranic verse which says “We sent our Messengers with clear signs and instructions and set down with them the Book and the balance so that the people stand by justice”. (57:25)

In the sphere of human activities, when the principles of balance are applied in the exercise of discretion, whether in relation to one’s self or in relation to others, or in the exercise of authority or in the delivery of judgments or decisions in regard to others in general and their rights and obligations in particular, it is called justice.

Dispensation of justice assumes particular significance when it is in regard to the determination of rights and obligations, or innocence or guilt, of others. One of the main requirements of doing justice in regard to these matters could be that the person giving decision on the issues involved observes the norms of balance to the extent possible, which means that he gives equal opportunities to the parties to plead and defend their claims and positions, as the case may be. That he weighs the evidence adduced and the arguments put forward with even scales, and gives due consideration to the contentions raised and the pleas set up by the parties, and then delivers the judgment on merit.

Delivering judgment on merit means that the person delivering such judgment is unbiased and uninfluenced by any consideration other than the merit and demerit of the evidence produced by the parties.

In this connection the Quran says: “O believers, be you the standard bearers of justice and witnesses for the sake of Allah, even though your justice and your evidence might be harmful to yourself, or to your parents, or to your relatives. It does not matter whether the party concerned is rich or poor: Allah is their greater well wisher than you”. (4:135) The decision of the Prophet (peace be upon him) in the dispute between an orphan and his guardian over the ownership of a palm tree could be an ideal example. On the evidence presented, the palm tree proved to be the property of the guardian and the Prophet ruled accordingly. But the Prophet was so much moved by the sadness of the orphan over the decision that he purchased the tree from the guardian through some one else and gifted it over to the child (waqidi).

No extent of affection or sympathy could deter him from delivering the judgment on merit. Equally important is what the Prophet said while rejecting a request that “the early people were destroyed because if an influential person among them committed a crime he was allowed to go unpunished while a weak one was punished”.

The Quran also spells out specific principles and norms of justice in regard to various matters. For example, it says “there is no blame on you in the mistakes that you commit unintentionally” (33:5) and that “Allah will not take you to task for that which is unintentional in your oaths”. (2:225) Similarly, the Prophet said that intention is the foundation of all human action. These verses of the Quran and the saying of the Prophet spell out that there can be no sin, crime or offence without intent.

In other words, intention could be the gist of an offence. This principle has now been accepted the world over which means that what was revealed by the Quran fourteen hundred years ago is now universally accepted. Likewise, in regard to the punishment, the Quran says: “The recompense for an injury is an injury equal thereto but if a person forgives and makes reconciliation his reward is due from Allah”. (42:40)

This means that the punishment must be commensurate to the offence committed, yet the acts of forgiving and making reconciliation are preferred if the person aggrieved or harmed so desires. At the same time the Quran recognizes the right to self-defence (26:227).

In regard to civil matters, the Quran reveals specific principles of fundamental importance to the dispensation of justice in these matters. These principles are: do not covet (4:32) or usurp (2:188) what belongs to others; do not withhold from the people things that are due to them (11:85); weigh with even scales (be fair in all transactions) (17:35); do not violate trusts (8:27) (2:283); keep pledges (17:34); do not commit fraud (83:1) and do not commit excesses (5:87).

In almost all the countries of the world, these principles have been incorporated in the relevant laws or they serve as the basis of decisions in related cases. In regard to the contracts involving future obligations, the Quran specifically enjoins that such contracts shall be reduced, through writing in the presence of at least two witnesses. It takes due care that the genuine interests of the parties, especially of the one who is likely to incur liability or obligations under the contract, are fully protected.

Since dispensation of justice, whether in matters involving the rights and obligations of parties, or the innocence or guilt of a person or persons, largely depends on evidence, the Quran lays special emphasis on obtaining proper and relevant evidence. It says: “Never conceal evidence for he who conceals it has a sinful heart”. (2:283)

It says again: “Cover not truth with falsehood nor conceal truth when you know”. (2:42) And further: “O believers be steadfast in giving evidence for the sake of Allah in equity and let not the enmity of any people provoke you to turn away from justice”. (5:8)

LAST MONDAY Phillip Reeker, spokesman for the US State Department in Washington, announced closure of US Consulate in Karachi. The move appeared to have come in retaliation of a decision taken by Sindh authorities for reopening of nearby Abdullah Haroon Road to two-way traffic. Reeker said: “The consulate is going to remain closed until a mutually accepted agreement can be reached with the government of the province to provide the security that is sufficient for our consulate building”.

The higher-ups at the home department and Sindh Police were expecting the showdown for many days. During a lunch at one of the city’s premier clubs last week, the grapevine was topped and oozing with arguments over the decision by the top provincial authority that could truly agitate Americans. The decision was obviously not taken in isolation and was well received across the city.

Since June 14, when a car bomb exploded outside the US Consulate located at Abdullah Haroon road killing twelve Pakistanis, thousands of Karachiites had been suffering due to subsequent choking of city’s major artery. The blast had also inflicted extensive structural damage to the consulate and many residential and commercial buildings in that area.

Amongst extensively damaged buildings, Frere Hall is probably the most beautiful, housing a public library and an art gallery. Karachiites consider Frere Hall as the vital jewel of their city’s long and proud history. Funded partly by the Karachi’s Municipality but mostly by public subscription this beautiful and handsome Venetian Gothic structure built mostly of Limestone quarried close to the city was constructed in 1859. The columns of the upper veranda are of Bholari oolite and the voussoirs of the ground floor are alternately of the same oolite and of grey sandstone from Jungshahi. Those of the upper story have dark red sandstone. The spirelet (144 feet high) and the octagonal tower are coated with Muntz’s metal. The building has served as Town Hall and its splendid rooms have well adapted by their space and height public meetings, balls, concerts, lectures, dramatic performances and museum for over hundred and thirty years.

For years the ground floor of Frere Hall has housed a fine public library of over seventy thousand books, including rare and hand written manuscripts, newspapers, dictionaries, atlases and technical books. For sometime the upper floor has been extensively used as an art gallery. Unfortunately, the Amroha born, self-taught, calligrapher and painter maestro Sadeqain, could not complete painting of the upper roof due to his untimely death.

It is widely acknowledged that the June 14 bomb explosion was in reaction to the continued US war against Osama bin Laden and Taliban forces in this region. The innocent victims of the bomb blast or their families have yet to be compensated for their loss. Frere Hall is not the only precious property damaged in that neighbourhood. The majestic Sindh Club, Seafield, Marriott Hotel, Flagstaff House and many other important buildings sustained major damage.

The city still houses the largest number of refugees from last American war that ravaged Afghanistan during Soviet era. The tension between the Northern Uzbeks/ Tajiks and Pushtoon communities of Afghan refugees almost translated into open hostilities at the onset of US strikes in Afghanistan against predominantly Pushtoon Talibans. It may have been the timely intervention by local authorities that prevented major blood baths between those communities in the city.

There is an old saying, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. In this unipolar world there appears little chance that things are going to change any sooner. The June 14 bomb explosion may have been the fourth major attack on western targets in Pakistan since September 11 but obviously not the last one. Karachi seems to have already faced the major brunt of loss of life and damage to property during last one year. Many people fear that many more shall die and get injured, and many other properties destroyed if these “crusades” continue in this region.

There are many charters governing international code of ethics. Embassies may be designed to perform diplomatic functions but the consular offices are usually set up to facilitate people in major cities of the host country and promotion of bi-lateral socio-cultural and economic exchange. Attempts to keep Abdullah Haroon road indefinitely closed on US consulate’s demand for additional security out of an already narrow and congested municipal thoroughfare adds insult to injury.

The visa section of US Consulate in Karachi has been closed for many years, forcing thousands of Karachiites to travel to Islamabad every year to obtain one.

Like Karachi the New York City continues to face the brunt of reaction towards wanton US policies. Many people fear that New York remains the most probable target for future violent reactions to the conservative and at times reckless foreign policy of George W. Bush Junior and his administration. With World Trade Centre gone, some of the diplomats and foreign businessmen living in New York worry about terrorists raising the stakes in future yet no one has started to pack their bags nor any consulate has been shut down.

Opening of two-way traffic over Abdullah Haroon road was a correct and gutsy decision. We are now required to say “cheese” to FBI agents at every exit and entry port of our country. Asking US Consulate to facilitate Karachiites may not be out of order if the consulate finally reopens. Reportedly the Charge d’affaires of the returned USAID has already identified areas that Pakistanis need to be educated and trained. He may however consider some investments for repairs and rehabilitation of Frere Hall and other buildings as well as people falling victim to the fresh American crusade in this region. Karachi shares the grief and sorrow of New York City but it may not be fair to make it pay with the lives of its residents for windfall profits of American Defence-Industrial Complex.

HAMEEDA Begum, 57, strikes you as a typical Gujar woman from a Gujrat village — tall, heavily built, sun-burnt, capable of looking you in the eye, articulate in matters she understands, but innocent in matters she does not know about, such as becoming a complainant in a murder case.

She was required to file an FIR because she saw her husband and her son, (the latter is invariably referred to as 6.5-foot tall sohna jawan, a student of BCS felled by volleys of gunfire. She saw this as she was sitting on the pillion of the motorbike her husband was driving, with the young son in front of him. They were overtaken by a car, forced to stop and then guns started spitting fire. This happened early in May on a metalled road barely 15-16 miles away from the city of Gujrat, in the most developed part of the country.

Oh, another murder story, one might say, but this is not about another case of double murder. This is the story of rural Pakistan in transition, of the survival of old customs despite education and enterprise. It is a tale of innocence destroyed by the system.

She belongs to Shergarh village, tehsil Gujrat. Her family has only a small piece of land, which she does not consider worth mentioning. She has other references to be proud of. Her 108-year-old father has been living in England for decades. Both of her brothers made their home in England and helped a large number of Gujratis settle there. The older of the two has died while the younger one is still “leading a decent life.”

Her husband, Aziz Ahmad, did a stint in the army and then went to Dubai where he served for 30 years. Hameeda did not join him for nearly two decades-and-a-half because she was supposed to look after her mother-in-law, who was also the sister of her father, and her son. “It is a custom with us to look after the elders of the family,” she says. But all her children — three sons and two daughters — joined their father in Dubai “for education.” It was only after her mother-in-law and her son had died that Hameeda went to Dubai and stayed there for about five years. Otherwise, the husband and the children would come home to spend a month’s leave every year. It was all very well. All her children got good education. One son did MBA, did not like the petty jobs offered in Pakistan and went to Canada. He is unlikely to come back. The second son is in Dubai. And the third one, “the apple of my eye, six and a half-foot tall, who was gunned down along with his father on a May morning was studying in ‘BCS’.” The elder daughter did MA and the younger one graduated. “We do not have land but we have education,” she says and her head goes up a few centimetres. She does not consider herself illiterate either as she studied up to the fifth class.

After retirement from his Dubai job, her husband Aziz Ahmad decided to live in his village, because he loved his identity, wanted to be amidst his people. “He built a beautiful house,” says Hameeda. A local lawyer testifies to his welfare work.

In marriages, the family has been following the old custom of cousin-marriages and watta-satta, within the single biradari living in the village. All the villagers are in one way or another related to one another. And Hameeda’s family is not the only one to boast of education. Others from the village also have shown enterprise. There is one who has done PhD and another who holds a commission in the army, through not all the villagers have done equally well.

The children’s marriages did not work. The eldest son was divorced by his wife and her parents sent Hameeda’s daughter home (this was watta-satta). In retaliation, says Hameeda, “we forced a saukan (second wife) on their daughter.” What she means is that she gave her younger daughter in marriage to the husband of the woman whose brother had divorced Hameeda’s elder daughter and whose sister had separated from her husband (Hameeda’s son). There is no other way to describe this arrangement. Every action is justified in the name of tradition.

Further, the brother of the woman, on whom a saukan was foisted (hum ney saukan daldi), was chosen as the new spouse of the girl who had been divorced, and the couple went away to Canada. The young man’s old father was left in the village where he owned property (land, kothi, and shops), estimated worth 10 million rupees. The in-laws of her daughter, the one made to suffer a saukan, got documents prepared that had the effect of depriving the old man of everything he possessed. Hameeda’s husband, Aziz Ahmad, is said to have supported the old man’s suit for regaining his property. But Aziz Ahmad was killed and the old man died of fright.

ActII. After the double murder on a May morning, the village elders told Hameeda not to go to the police. “We’ll look after everything, we’ll take revenge,” they are reported to have said. Their plea was grounded in tradition. Somebody went to the police station (Saddar, Jalalpur Jattan) and gave a list of people as witnesses who said they had not witnessed anything. The police task was easy. Since there were no witnesses to the daylight murders by the roadside, nothing could be done to the culprits. The evidence of people who saw the murder was not taken into account.

Now Hameeda Begum is asking for two things. She seeks security of her own life and she wants the killers of her husband and her son to be brought to book. Ordinary, normal demands, one might say. But a majority of the population knows how difficult the required guarantees are. Nothing is more difficult to achieve today than security of life and assurance of justice.

The last movie the great Russian film-maker Eisenstein was working on was titled An American Tragedy and it dealt with a difficult situation faced by a woman. Somebody may think of writing the story of Zafran Bibi of Kohat, or Mukhtar Bibi of Meerwala or Waziran of Mianwali or of Hameeda Begum of Gujrat as A Pakistani Tragedy. And if Ghalib was right about seeing the river in a drop and the totality in a small part, then one should be able to see in the lives of these women in a society that is Pakistan.

Hameeda Begum’s story is not set in a tribal society, nor in an area far from settled communities. She lives in the developed part of Punjab, where access to colleges and courts as well as rail and road links is easy. Here, too, the custom of treating women as weights in a bargain has survived. Neither education nor migration to the advanced world has affected it. The right to vote to elect representatives and the devolution plan have not improved the capacity of citizens to receive justice.

Why have customs such as watta satta, foisting of a saukan, rape of women by their protectors, gang-rape under community sanction and surrender of girls to settle feuds survived? People go abroad, adjust themselves to foreign cultures and disciplines but at home they do not change their ways. Education does not help them to grow out of ancient practices because it does not address such issues. Nor does education help in throwing up policemen capable of fighting custom. In the end everybody is likely to throw up his/her hands in despair and tell Hameeda that she cannot be helped.

THE Citizen Police Liaison Committee (CPLC), Faisalabad, which was established recently with great pomp and show for the redress of people’s grievances could not get off the ground despite support of senior police officers.

The CPLC was a symbolic step for resolving complaints in a friendly atmosphere. But it has failed even to keep abreast the people of its working.

Out of a total of 187 complaints, it decided 101 in which it either struck deals or found the cases non-cognizable and non-processable for want of evidence and record. In only 20 applications, the CPLC got registered cases in police stations. Incidentally, 70 per cent of such FIRs related to financial disputes.

The CPLC has a staff of 11 members in its head office at the People’s Colony police station incurring monthly expenses of Rs165,000, including wages and electricity bills. It has spent Rs3.5 million for the renovation of building and setting up its office equipped with computers and other gadgets. All its expenses are met by the members from their own resources without burdening the treasury or securing donations.

Since its inception, it succeeded in holding a seminar on ‘Human Rights and Policing’ which was primarily conducted on the direction of the Federal Ministry of Justice and Parliamentary Affairs.

Not a single workshop, debate, lecture or programme has so far been conducted in any locality of the city to create awareness among the masses for raising their voice for the protection of their rights and duties and for creating harmony among them by propagating the teachings of the Quran and Sunnat to check the root causes of crime and to save the people from the excesses of the police.

The CPLC had announced that special desks would be set up at each police station of the district for entertaining complaints of the aggrieved people. The police were supposed to take up those complaints and initiate legal action. However, this goal could not be materialized.

Similarly, the plan for computerizing the record of police stations, under-trial cases and the District, Central and Borstal jails and digitizing mapping of the city to control sensational crimes like snatching of vehicles, robberies at commercial centres, kidnappings for ransom or enmity could not be achieved.

Important projects like the setting up of drug rehabilitation and counselling centres also seem to be at the blue-print stage. Plans to introduce private policing with the help of police, establishing a jail detainees welfare committee and a police welfare committee for improving their working environment and also creating an environmental committee with the help of the Tehsil Municipal Administration and police are in the doldrums.

The CPLC could not make a breakthrough in removing traffic hazards from the city. Similarly, the establishment of a geographical information system to enable the law-enforcement agencies to evolve effective plans for emergency response is a dream.

The CPLC was established for creating community policing so that the gap between the police and the people could be bridged. But the hard fact is that the gap is widening with each passing day.

CPLC chief Mushtaq Ali Cheema and deputy chief Khurram Iftikhar and members — Gen Qayyum, Mian Muhammad Latif, Ahmad Kamal, Asif Sooria, Imran Zahid, Junaid Ahmad, Mian Muhammad Haneef, Rana Javed Akhtar, Riaz Chawla, Sheikh Waheed, Saqib Shahzad, Shahid Aziz, and Sheikh Imran Ahmad — are business tycoons.

Former district police officer Tasadduq Husain, who is said to be the mastermind of the institution, says that the CPLC would die a natural death if its members did not act sincerely and devotedly.

According to him, the CPLC was expected to bridge the communication gap and to build strong confidence between the citizens and the police. The motto of the CPLC is ‘together we can and together we must’. But it has so far failed to achieve the goal owing to laxity of some of its members and police officials.

Tasadduq Husain claimed that muharrars of police stations dubbed symbols of terror for the people seeking police assistance against the offenders, criminals and outlaws had been replaced by pleasant-looking staff of the CPLC and police at the People’s Colony police station. However, it could not provide any relief to the people, he admitted. The ground reality was that there was none to rescue the people from the torture and clutches of the police, the former SSP said.

He pointed out that instead of providing help to the people and redressing their grievances, the CPLC had literally converted the district police office into a ‘Post Box’ for forwarding letters seeking action against offenders, which was a pity.

It is deplorable that an institution having promise of providing relief to the people and bringing about peace in the society has failed for want of the required will and conviction in its members.

The question is who will come forward for a noble cause with the desired voluntary spirit, sincerity and selflessness?