| December 16, 2003 | Tuesday | Shawwal 21, 1424 |
Water release below Kotri
THE recent arrest of two gangs of criminals by the local police on the one hand provided a sigh of relief to the people whose lives had been made miserable by the outlaws for many years, and while on the other posed questions as to whether the police claim was genuine about the crime history of the busted gangs, and if so why were they allowed to go scot-free in the past.
District police officer Mohammad Amin, speaking at a news conference here the other day, claimed that police functionaries were told to behave and work with a fighting spirit against outlaws, irrespective of their influence.
This warning, he claimed, forced the police to work due to which it succeeded in making a dent in the unchecked activities of the outlaws operating in the district for the last many years. He admitted that in the past outlaws had been operating with the connivance of a number of police officials.
The police sources admitted that the gangs rounded up by the police were undoubtedly known as kings of terror, and the police officials concerned did not enter any complaint in the record against the gangsters who belong to the Bajwa and Rana Rashid groups. According to DPO, owing to its own weaknesses, the police did not challan these gangs who had virtually made the inhabitants of the district their hostage.
He claimed these gangs were involved in kidnappings for ransom, snatching cars and motorcycles, highway robberies, dacoities, thefts, murders, and had been operating as hired killers in Faisalabad and other adjoining districts.
According to a police source, during interrogation it was observed that 80 per cent of the crime confessed by them was such which had not been recorded by or reported to the police.
The source revealed that a number of senior police officers, bureaucrats and industrialists had also acquired the services of these gangs for elimination of their opponents and teaching a lesson to their rivals by killing their kith and kin or by ruining them financially.
The arrested 11 members of Bajwa gang are Ashraf, Arshad, Sanaullah, Ghulam Abbas, Umair Ali, Ahmad Husain, Naseem Akhtar, Mudassar Ali, Salman, Tahir Imran and Mudassar Husain. They were wanted by the police in dozens of cases of murder, kidnap for ransom, dacoity and attack on police. The police recovered two machine-guns, nine rifles, two repeater guns, two motorcycles, cellular phones, fake registration books of vehicles, fake identity cards and other documents from the possession of the outlaws. The DPO said the police rounded up a gang headed by Rana Rashid involved in over 100 cases of heinous crime, especially vehicle lifting.
This gang used to snatch vehicles from Faisalabad and later shift them to the tribal areas by installing fake number plates obtained from a showroom in Sargodha. Fifteen motorcycles, 10 cars and a huge quantity of weapons have so far been recovered from their possession, while efforts are being made to arrest their accomplices, he said.
The police sources said during initial interrogation, the Bajwa gang gave details of over 150 victims, including traders, bankers and industrialists, who were forced to pay ransom. Not only this, dozens of senior police officers who served here or were posted elsewhere in the province also used to assign them the tasks of looting, killing, injuring, torturing and vehicle-snatching.
According to criminologists, it is a big flaw in criminal law that if a crime is not reported and substantiated by witnesses in consonance with the timing and date of the occurrence, the criminals cannot be punished by the courts. Two major factors are revealed in this scenario.
The people do not report an occurrence of a crime to the police either for fear of criminals or due to lack of faith in the police. The victims prefer in many cases to remain silent and bear the financial loss suffered by them. But the question is, why are the government and society helpless against the criminals?
The disclosure of the long history of the crimes admitted by the arrested gangsters clearly established that in the present detective, investigative and preventive system, the outlaws and hardened criminals cannot be taken to task in real sense.
Criminological experts should ponder and come out with a practical mechanism for securing the people from the wrath of criminals and providing a sense of security to them. One hopes that the Faisalabad DPO will not succumb to the pressure of outlaws and the busted gangs and expose all those who have been patronizing them.
It is also a test of the DPO to ensure that the snatched cars, motorcycles and recovered articles like cash, cellular phones and gold ornaments are handed over to their owners. In the past, the snatched vehicles were seen in use of police officials or their kith and kin. Similarly, cash and other precious articles were hardly made a part of recovery of the case.
One also hopes that the practice of submitting chargesheets of cases in the courts containing lacunas, flaws and witnesses of the choice of criminals so that they might be acquitted taking advantage of the benefit of doubt, will come to an end. However, one must appreciate the police success in smashing the Bajwa group in Pharang village of Chak Jhumra which was known as a no-go area for many years.
REFERRING to the lingering issue of water releases downstream Kotri, Kawish writes that it has again become confused as the parliamentary committee on the water issue, on the insistence of Punjab, has decided to conduct a study on losses caused by the handing over of three rivers to India.
The daily claims that a decision to conduct a study on the quantity of water discharge downstream Kotri was taken way back in 1991, and there is no need for a fresh decision. The parliamentary committee should have pushed the matter further; but instead, it seems to have pushed it back.
The paper argues that the water discharge below Kotri and losses caused by the surrender of the Ravi, Sutlej and Bias rivers to India are two different matters and they should not be mixed up. Punjab may now demand that before making a final decision on water release downstream Kotri, it should be compensated for the losses caused by the bargain on rivers.
Moreover, Kawish adds, the parliamentary committee has decided to confine the study on water discharge downstream Kotri to environmental degradation and sea intrusion and left out the need for water for irrigation and drinking purposes in the area. This again is an attempt to complicate the issue and prolong the dispute.
Hilal-i-Pakistan writes that Sindh Chief Minister Ali Mohammad Mahar has informed the Sindh Assembly that the displaced people of Tarbela and Mangla dams and Islamabad have been allotted 42,000 acres of land in Ghotki, Shikarpur and Jacobabad districts. Earlier, following the construction of the Kotri and Guddu barrages, their land had been awarded to government functionaries not hailing from Sindh.
The daily urges the government to stop this practice as it leads to increasing sense of deprivation prevailing in Sindh and distribute state land in the province among its landless peasants.
Hailing the amendments to the Sindh Private Educational Institutions (regulation and control) Ordinance 2001, Ibrat writes that the amendments would authorize the Sindh government to determine the fee structure of private institutions and bind them to provide the required infrastructure including libraries, playgrounds and canteens to their students. The amendments also make it mandatory to teach Sindhi in private schools.
The daily says that education plays a fundamental role in preparing young generation to take up challenges of future but it has been neglected by successive governments. The result is the commercialization of education evident in mushroom growth of private educational institutions.
But Ibrat insists that there is a need to improve the standard of education in government schools and the process could begin with updating their obsolete textbooks.
Tameer-i-Sindh comments on an accident near Qazi Ahmed which caused the death of eight passengers and injuries to 25. It says that due to frequent accidents usually cau-
sed by speeding passenger buses, the roads of Sindh have become highways to death.