ISLAMABAD: The Rangers do not have a mandate to carry out “accountability” in any part of the country, including Karachi, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said on Tuesday.

His remarks came a day after Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan called on the Rangers to conduct an anti-corruption operation in Punjab. The interior minister said that such “invitations” were outside the ambit of the law.

Without specifically naming Imran Khan, the minister said in a statement released on Tuesday that he failed to understand how the leader of a political party could make such a demand. “Everybody has freedom of expression, but this freedom must be [confined] within the limits of the law and the Constitution.”

Chaudhry Nisar said Gen Raheel Sharif and the Pakistan Army were being commended because they were fulfilling the duties assigned to them under the law and the Constitution.

He said that making such demands of the army or Rangers for political point-scoring was tantamount to making the institutions controversial and could also shift the ongoing Karachi operation away from its true objectives. He said that any attempt to meddle in the affairs of state institutions contradicted the spirit and strength of the democratic system.

He said that the politicisation of security institutions by bringing the role of the armed forces into political statements was alarming.

The minister termed such statements “incomprehensible and inappropriate”, saying that, “It was an unwise act to seek the involvement of security institutions in irrelevant and unnecessary jobs”.

He added that it was easy to give false hope and indulge in the “politics of allegations”, but it was harder to resolve problems and demonstrate performance. “Today, Pakistan is far better off than it was in 2013,” he claimed, and said that while peace was returning to Karachi, the overall law and order situation had improved significantly.

PPP’s reaction

Senator Farhatullah Babar, spokesperson for former president Asif Ali Zardari, who had previously alleged that the Rangers were overstepping their mandate in Karachi and has been raising the issue in parliament, said that it was not the Rangers’ mandate to handle corruption, but the force seems to have exceeded its authority in Karachi.

“There are laws and statutory bodies to fight corruption and Rangers are not one of them,” he said, adding that the PTI’s demand that Rangers be empowered to handle corruption cases was not in accordance with the law.

“This is why, when the Rangers mix terrorism with corruption in Karachi, it raises questions about the [motives behind] that action,” he said, citing the case of Dr Asim Hussain as a classic example. He said that Dr Hussain was taken into custody for 90 days under terrorism laws, but after two weeks, was accused of corruption.

Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2015

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