| May 29, 2005 | Sunday | Rabi-us-Sani 20, 1426 |
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A correct decision
Curbing police excesses
IT IS regrettable in the extreme that stubbornness has again triumphed over good sense on Siachen. The defence secretaries of Pakistan and India met in Islamabad for two days of talks last Thursday amidst high hopes of a breakthrough on this issue. But at the end, a bald statement merely repeated the diplomatic doublespeak for deadlock: that the two sides held “frank and constructive discussions” and would continue to talk — without specifying any new date. In real terms, therefore, the position, if it has not actually regressed, remains the same as the one that prevailed when the then Indian premier, Mr Rajiv Gandhi, had come to Islamabad for talks with Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in July 1989. At that time, there were at least signs of some agreement on a redeployment of forces in the forbidding 6,300-metre high glacier and efforts to determine future positions in preparation for a comprehensive Siachen settlement. But premature information leaks, coupled with the fact that Mr Gandhi had decided to go to the polls later that year, put paid to any chance of an agreement on a politically sensitive question.
Since India occupied the heights in 1984, a stalemate has prevailed, punctuated off and on by active hostilities. But, as has been repeated almost ad nauseam: more soldiers have died from the cold than by shooting at one another. The cost for both India and Pakistan has been frightening in both human and material terms; somebody pointed out the other day that bread that sold for two rupees in the plains cost almost a hundred times more by the time it got to the men in Siachen. It seems such a needless and costly standoff. It has somehow become a matter of prestige, and no one is prepared to blink first, although India went into the area unilaterally and the burden for an agreement rests on it. The issue is also of course tied up with Kashmir, which only complicates matters. But the expectation was that since Islamabad and New Delhi were now set on a friendly course and even inching towards substantive discussions on Kashmir, they might have wanted to get Siachen out of the way and provide another indication of their determination to put the past behind. A more earnest attempt should be made to at least agree on withdrawal to less harsh and more civilized positions and to pledge that no patrols in uncharted territory will be carried out by either side. This too should be seen as a confidence-building measure.
Meanwhile, what does one make of the Indian stand that leaders of the Hurriyat can travel only to Azad Kashmir and not go anywhere else? Technically, since the APHC delegation will be coming by the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus, the visit will be governed by the rules laid down for the bus service. But, for heaven’s sake, the Mirwaiz and his companions cannot be treated on the same footing as divided families or ordinary travellers. The whole thing has been devised as a political initiative, and the bus alternative, with its temporary permits, was decided on to circumvent the Kashmiri leaders having to apply for passports to New Delhi, with all kinds of implications. The visit must continue to be looked at politically because much is riding on the proposed bus journey on June 2 and disappointment will be acute if it falls through.
THE Economic Coordination Committee’s decision to allow companies in the private sector to generate electricity for their own needs is welcome and fulfils a long-standing demand of trade, commerce and industry. The decision should yield several benefits, not only for the industrial sector, but for the economy as a whole. For years, productivity and output of the country’s major industrial estates in the two largest cities — Karachi and Lahore — have been badly affected by frequent power breakdowns and loadshedding. The problem has been particularly severe in the case of Karachi where the city’s various trade and industrial bodies have for long been demanding permission from the government to set up their own power generation plants. But this right was repeatedly denied on the grounds that it would affect the state-owned utility KESC’s revenue earnings. However, logic demands that the industrial sector should not be punished in terms of production losses if the KESC or Wapda cannot improve their performance and ensure uninterrupted power supply.
What will hopefully happen once permission is granted, as the business and industry groups have promised, is that industrial output will increase, their production no longer hampered by loadshedding and power breakdowns. This in turn should help increase exports as well as goods to satisfy internal demand. Another good thing will be that underemployment, caused in large part by the restricted production performance of industries, will be reduced. There would be other benefits as well if the industrial sector is allowed to generate its own electricity. One would be a reduced load on the distribution network of the power utilities. This in turn should help reduce power outages and the compulsion for loadshedding affecting domestic consumers of power. At the same time, while allowing companies in the private sector to produce electricity for their own consumption, the federal government should see to it that the public sector power production companies, especially the KESC, improve their operational efficiency and financial situation by concentrating on the recovery of arrears, distribution faults, reduction of line losses and eliminating illegal connections.
THE recent observation made by the Lahore High Court that torture in custody is unconstitutional and that police personnel involved in this crime should be penalized is reassuring, but whether anything will come out of it will depend on whether the law-enforcement authorities in the country take steps to ensure that this reprehensible practice is rooted out. While the judicial comment related to a specific case of illegal confinement and torture of a group of people, including an eight-year-old boy, by Punjab police officials, the fact remains that custodial torture is prevalent in police stations across the country. Despite strong denunciation of the practice by human rights groups and the existence of specific provisions in the Police Order 2002 itself prohibiting such physical abuse, there are few signs that torture cases are on the decline. In many cases, the brutish methods of interrogation employed by the police to extract forced confessions from detainees have resulted in the death of the victims, while others have endured lifelong physical and psychological scars.
Unfortunately, unbridled powers for the police have led to a situation where the force has become a law unto itself. If it is ever to win the public’s confidence, its propensity to violate all rules and norms of acceptable treatment of detained suspects must come to an end. That certainly would not be possible unless there is a realization within the police force that it can be held legally answerable for its highhanded conduct. For this it is necessary to settle the present controversy surrounding proposed amendments to the law and to activate the public safety and complaints commissions so that some mechanism is there for checking police excesses and making the guilty ones liable to legal action.