| 18 October 2004 | Monday | 03 Ramazan 1425 |
No more experiments, please
The caring hand of fanaticism
The police in the twin cities of Islamabad-Rawalpindi appear to be going through a particularly bad patch. A couple of incidents occurred recently which have painted an increasingly unflattering picture of the force.
Last Wednesday, three personnel of the Kahuta police practically created a law and order situation in their jurisdiction. They had apparently gone to arrest a proclaimed offender, who was accused of kidnapping and child molestation, but ended up killing the latter.
This enraged residents of the locality who then attacked the police station in the hundreds, set fire to logs, pelted stones at vehicles and blocked traffic. The police responded with teargas shelling and baton-charge. The whole incident lasted for several hours.
The next day, the district police officer, Rawalpindi, ordered the suspension of the whole staff of the police station, including one SI, six ASIs and 20 constables, with the exception of the SHO who was apparently on leave on the day of the incident. An impartial inquiry into the incident was also promised and the three police personnel responsible for killing the proclaimed offender were booked for murder.
People of the locality are said to be annoyed with the apparent non-professional attitude of the police, whom they accuse of siding with particular persons in the area regardless of who is really guilty or wrong. This is a serious charge, which if true would require reforms in the police station that will prevent these particular persons of the locality from trying to influence the new police staff who have now been posted there.
Another fiasco took place last month when policemen from the twin cities got their priorities mixed up in a drug seizure incident at Pirwadhai, on the border between the twin cities. The personnel of the Pirwadhai Police Station in Rawalpindi and the I-9 Industrial Area Police Station in Islamabad, both of whom were on the same drug traffickers' trail, had scrambled with each other to seize the huge quantity of coveted charas.
During the melee, when the policemen from both stations scuffled with each other and resorted to aerial firing and even tit-for-tat detention of each other's personnel, the drug traffickers got the golden opportunity to slip away. In the final tally, the Rawalpindi police managed to seize a larger amount of charas (43kg) than the Islamabad police (37kg)!
The incident led to a war of words between the top police officials of the twin cities, with both sides claiming that the narcotics were seized in their jurisdiction. The IGP of Islamabad insisted that the narcotics were seized within the ICT jurisdiction, whereas the DIG of Rawalpindi police rejected the joint inquiry report and demanded another "proper" inquiry.
Rather than making a beeline for the narcotics, wasn't it more important for policemen on both sides to catch the drug traffickers so that through the latter they can then track down the ringleaders and masterminds, and thus choke off this illegal trade? Instead, the police have enabled the drug traffickers to escape, allowing the latter to make yet another drug run - perhaps again for the police to seize the consignment and claim credit?
Another incident of conflict among police personnel was also reported in the capital last week, this time involving alcohol. An ASI, who had gone to a kutchi abadi to investigate a case, was accused by a constable already at the scene of consuming alcohol. The ASI was immediately suspended but a chemical examination report later apparently proved the accusation false, and the constable (and three other accomplices) were subsequently booked for framing the ASI in a false case. The interesting question is why did the constable find it necessary to implicate the ASI in a false case?
A day before the drug seizure fiasco at Pirwadhai, three policemen who were trying to board a flight for the UK at Islamabad Airport were arrested for human trafficking and possession of fake documents. Although the three culprits - an SSP, a sub-inspector and a head constable - were from the Azad Kashmir police, their arrest tarnished the image of the police in general.
As if the above incidents were not enough to malign the name of the police, a string of robberies and car thefts in the capital in the past two months also added to the police's bad name. The most prominent of these robberies was the one which occurred in a recently opened three-storey supermarket departmental store in Jinnah Supermarket, in which a guard was shot dead. Another robbery took place in the house of an assistant commissioner in G-9 sector. A car belonging to a journalist in an English newspaper was also among the many vehicles that were stolen from the twin cities recently.
Nearly three weeks ago, it was reported that the capital police had submitted an eight-point report to the interior ministry on how to improve its image and the security situation in Islamabad. Amongst the measures include the establishment of two new police stations, the recruitment of 2,000 new personnel, and the resumption of "neighbourhood policing" or community policing by deputing policemen in patrol cars and on foot in the various sectors and sub-sectors to gain the trust of the people and work with them to curb crime. These three measures were supposed to be implemented within 100 days.
But new police stations, more police personnel and more police patrols are good only if accompanied by a new sense of professionalism and efficiency in the force. This should be evidenced by fair, impartial and honest investigations as well as prompt implementation of the outcome and decisions arising from these investigations. So long as the values, mindset and working of the police in general remains unchanged, no amount of reforms or increase in police personnel and police stations can have the desired effect of improving security and the image of the force.
No more experiments, please
Noted academic Dr Manzoor Ahmed has been holding informal brainstorming sessions at his place for the past couple of years. Intellectuals espousing diametrically opposed ideologies get together once a month and express their views on the topics conveyed to them in advance. New books, such as Huntington's spine-chilling dissertation on Latin America and the threat it poses to the United States, and world affairs come under discussion.
At a special gathering before Ramazan, Dr Ahmed invited well-known theologian Dr Israr Ahmed to address the participants. The cleric was warned that he would face tough questions at the end of his talk since the audience might not see eye to eye with him.
While Dr Ahmed held forth in a most impressive style, quoting Persian couplets and Quranic verses with remarkable facility, his discourse appeared to lack originality and consisted of a few oft-repeated ideas. When asked to spell out the reason for the decline of the Muslims, Dr Ahmed said they were facing divine punishment. Drawing a parallel between the Ummah of Moses and that of the Holy Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him), he said the Muslims had earned the ire of God by not fully obeying the Book.
He added that the Arabs would be punished more harshly than others because God had chosen a prophet from among them and the Quran was revealed in their language. Answering a question, he did not fully condemn suicide bombings and said those wronged by unjust rulers were within their rights to retaliate. He seemed to have little sympathy for those civilians, including children, who get killed in such bombings.
Dr Ahmed surprised the audience when he said that he wanted to replace the present parliamentary system in Pakistan with Nizam-i-Khilafat. When asked how he would resurrect the Caliphate considering that he shunned politics, he said it would come to pass in consequence of a revolution. He, in fact, chided the questioner for putting this query to him, telling him that Imam Khomeini could not have brought about the Iranian revolution in 1979 by taking part in the electoral process.
Wasn't Nawaz Sharif seeking to bring about a similar Khilafat system before he was dethroned? Haven't we already experimented enough with systems in our brief but chequered history?
Ramazan time
Ramazan time again. The faithful will fast by day and many of them will partake of the most mouth-watering of delicacies come dusk. Iftar choices abound, and when you haven't eaten the whole day it's difficult to decide what to have or indeed how much of it to keep for the next day.
There used to be a time when old Burnes Road was the only haunt of the chatpata iftar-seekers. True, the old outlets with their proverbial iftar delights are still crowded, but then one can ask which eating out place isn't, Ramazan or otherwise. No other nation has taken to food like we have, and why not?
As has become the tradition over the years, city restaurants and hotels have put together special sahar, iftar and all-night deals. Many of them are quite pricey, and therefore only for those who can afford to splurge. But the good old pakora figures on most menus, low- and high-cost both.
A new greeting is also now being heard. "Ramazan Mubarak" people said to each other on Friday night. This is probably a result of our Gulf connection, where the greeting "Ramadan Mubrook" is common. Remember, we used to say "Khuda Hafiz" once; now many say "Allah Hafiz."
The word this week is: fast and iftar to your heart's and soul's content. And, while doing so, don't forget the needy among us. It also helps to remember that the latter include many patients in our hospitals who may be struggling with life-threatening diseases and not have the means to get themselves treated. In this respect, it doesn't matter how small a donation one can make to a charitable cause. Every penny counts.
Award, either way?
A few days back, a non-governmental organization gave its "Woman of the year award" to the president of the First Women Bank, Zarine Aziz. The citation that accompanied the award praised Ms Aziz for turning the bank into a profit-making financial institution which, at the time of her takeover, was in the red.
One can appreciate the spirit behind the award, but why a couple of years ago the same NGO had conferred the same award upon Ms Aziz's predecessor, Akram Khatoon, who was the founding president of the First Women Bank. Ms Aziz's citation makes it abundantly clear that the bank was facing huge losses when she took office.
And, incidentally, for heaven's sake, why "women bank", not "women's bank"?
Street children
A research study recently released by an NGO is most alarming. Titled Solvent abuse among street children, the study reports that a large number of children are whiling away their time wandering the city streets in a state of complete daze.
"Not just that," warns Navaid Hussain of the Azad Foundation, "their number is bound to increase if no corrective steps are taken now." The non-governmental organization estimates that currently the number of street children is around 15,000 in Karachi.
The study, which was supported by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime as well as by the government of Pakistan, is based on a nationwide survey in which 416 children were interviewed.
According to the findings of the study, most health services in the city are not well equipped enough to cater for street children. "Many services rarely recognize the unique issues of young people, particularly those of street children, and rarely try to accommodate for their age specific behaviours," it says.
It also points out that the use of drugs among street children is linked to other issues, such as prostitution, sexual exploitation and unsafe sex practices. These, in turn, have contributed to a growing incidence of sexually transmitted diseases. Also, their vulnerability to HIV is found to be high.
At least 53 per cent of the children interviewed had heard about Aids or HIV. Of those who had knowledge about the disease, 43.9 per cent had learnt about it through television, 32.7 per cent from local NGOs working against Aids/HIV and 10 per cent through friends and acquaintances. Sixty-two per cent of the children who knew about Aids or HIV also knew how it spread. Forty-four per cent said sexual intercourse should be avoided if they wanted to avoid contracting the disease.
The study found out that drug use was widespread among street children, though the children interviewed said they had never used drug injections. It also discovered that more than half of the children interviewed were sexually active - at least 73.4 per cent in Lahore and 37 per cent in Peshawar.
The average age of the initiation of sexual activity was found to be 10 years. Use of condoms was reported to be negligible, as 80 per cent of the children interviewed said they had never used one, seven per cent said they had heard about it and 13 per cent said they employed it occasionally. Twenty-five per cent of them said they resorted to prostitution.
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The caring hand of fanaticism
A complementary message that often accompanies emails from social activists and NGOs these days goes thus: "When I feed the poor and provide for their shelter, they call me a saint. When I ask why the people are so poor, they call me a communist."
Unfortunately, in reality, the saint-communist nexus is not such a common feature any more. The good Samaritan tag sits easier with their ideological opposite who display a strange and contradictory relationship between palpably humane deeds and intolerant, religious zeal.
There are myopic Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Christian groups in India who are not always tolerant towards each other's faiths, but who compete hard nevertheless to provide succour to the needy, as though it were a mandatory requirement of their creed. In other words, religiously exclusivist groups become magnanimous in charity even with those who do not belong to their flock.
During the earthquake in Gujarat, three or four years ago, volunteers of the fanatically driven rightwing Hindu Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) were arranging shelter and food packets for the victims, who included a large number of Muslims. The fascist face of the RSS came to the fore during the anti-Muslim pogroms when it turned into a vehicle of hate and terror.
But it also remains a fact that during another massive earthquake in Latur in Maharashtra in 1993, I watched RSS volunteers along with their equally fanatical Shiv Sena comrades clean up the region of rotting human corpses and animal carcasses with bare hands. I also witnessed the gut wrenching sight to see the skin of dead bodies peel off into the hands of the volunteers. Few could have matched their grit.
But ask a hidebound communist, at least the variety we are familiar with in West Bengal and Kerala, for help at times of distress and they would first consider the political correctness of the shaping act of charity. A college professor, who was a communist, once chided a student for seeking funds from him for a charity show in aid of the blind school. "Charity begins only when revolutionary zeal wanes" was the terse message.
The issue was the same in Aligarh. For many years candidates supported by the Tablighi Jamaat, who were very focused campaigners for instilling Islamic values and belief among teachers and pupils alike, would win the student union elections at the Aligarh Muslim University.
They were a contradictory lot: intensely compassionate and helpful with the needy, but with a strong dislike of students who came from the liberal corner of the ideological divide. Most of the Tablighi folks would also refuse to break bread with Hindu students who formed a small minority in Aligarh.
On their part, the liberal students, who included leftists with Marxist beliefs in their ranks, would grudgingly put up a show of respect for the Islamic preachers who had a habit of barging into everyone's hostel rooms at odd hours. But to be truthful, the liberals scarcely made any attempt to hide their contempt for the religiously motivated Tabligh students.
A few days ago, perhaps for the first time in 50 years if not more, a student linked with the Communist Party of India was elected as a key office-bearer at the Aligarh students union. It is difficult to see any pattern of a major social change in this verdict. But these are straws in the wind. In any case the verdict brought back memories of the late 1960s when the Tabligh- liberal tussle heated up during an election season.
It was the month of Ramzaan, coinciding that year with December or perhaps January, and bitingly cold. A group of liberal-Marxist students would watch with awe the religious fervour of their fellow hostel-mates as they bathed with ice-cold water before sahari. Some of the students argued that the overtly religious students could not possibly subject themselves to the torture of ablutions with cold water had they not been imbued with some kind of fanatical religious zeal.
An eager student sought to shoot down this line of thinking. He argued that laidback liberals too could make for strict disciplinarians. He offered to bathe with cold water if that is what it took to dispel the myth that only religiously driven people like the Tablighis could do it. And so at precisely 4 am, when it was pitch dark and the coldest part of the day, a group of bleeding heart liberals accompanied the young man to the common bathroom.
The student had no sooner taken off his clothes when he was back looking terrorized. The first drop of cold water was enough to douse his missionary spirit. Shivering and gasping for breath, he thankfully returned to his quilt, which was still warm. That was the last time ever when a well-meaning liberal tried to measure his determination against the steely resolve of Aligarh's Tablighi Jamaat.
* * * * *
Talks between India's largest Maoist group, People's War Group, and the Congress party-led government in Andhra Pradesh have got under-way in earnest. The group's state secretary, Ramkrishna, who surfaced after two decades of hiding in dense jungles, gave some inkling of the strategy ahead.
Wasn't his dictum of social justice through dialogue and armed struggle self-contradictory, he was asked in one interview.
"Certainly not. Dialogue is also part of our exercise and concept of armed struggle. During our interactions with the people, we learnt that our armed presence was causing them suffering in some parts. They indicated to us that we need not give up arms just because we are seeking dialogue. 'Both should be there,' they said. We decided to give it a try.
"Even as we keep talking to the government, we wish to function as an effective grievance cell or ombudsman. We will investigate corrupt deeds of officials, elected representatives, etc. Now that there is no ban, our activists can function publicly and brave the wrath of the hired goons of the vested interests. If it comes to that, our armed dalams (battalion) will take care of such situations."