The world is at war with itself. Innocent people are being killed because of the acts of a tyrant. As weak as is Pakistan, all it can do is to make ineffectual noises.

Not much has changed in the 56 years of its existence. Shortly after partition, whilst Indian troops were marching into the Nizam's Hyderabad, crowds gathered outside the house of Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan on Victoria Road (now the State Guest House), shoving and pushing each other and shouting that they wished to be allowed to depart for the Deccan and fight, shoulder to shoulder, with their brother Muslims to prevent India from taking over the state.

Liaquat was a sensible man. He calmed them, then asked those who were intent on rushing off to fight to fall in on his right-hand side. These brave men would be armed by the government but would have to find their own way to Hyderabad. The rest of the crowd could go home. Not surprisingly, the crowd peacefully dispersed and the whole lot went quietly away.

Yesterday our press carried the headline 'MMA seeks govt permission for joining Iraqi forces'. Reportedly, the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal are anxiously awaiting permission to 'rush to Iraq, join forces with its forces and fight the US and its allied forces which are pouring bombs on the innocent people of Iraq.' A 'protest demonstration' met in Nowshera on Friday, after prayers, and it was addressed by Senator chief of the JUI(S), central leader of the MMA Maulana Sami-ul-Haq. The government of Zafarullah Jamali should immediately come to their aid, assist them in any way possible to leave the country immediately (but not in our aircraft), and wish them all Godspeed and a good journey to heaven.

Another leader, PAT chief Allama Tahirul Qadri, as reported in yesterday's press, has on Saturday left Pakistan en route to the US and UK and for three weeks will meet 'political figures of the two countries'. We must wish him a safe and successful trip.

Last Sunday I wrote on the abduction and roughing-up by our prime agency, the awesome ISI, of the deputy opposition leader of the Punjab Assembly, Advocate Rana Sanaullah of the PML(N). The next day, in the press, came a headline 'Sanaullah discharged from hospital', dateline Faisalabad, March 16. He had spent seven days in the District Headquarters Hospital recovering from his wounds and trauma. The hospital can provide a certified and signed copy of the report which describes the injuries inflicted on him by torture. Strangely, the same publication carried another headline on another page, 'Sanaullah stages a drama', dateline Lahore March 16, for a news item reporting that the Punjab chief minister's adviser on Human Rights, Rana Ejaz Ahmad Khan, had laughed off the abduction and torture of Sanaullah as 'a drama, which, he said, was staged just to defame the government.' Recommended: that Human Rights Khan procure a copy of the Faisalabad hospital report.

The ISI, that fearsome agency and its men are well trained in abduction and torture and have been at it for many a year. My chauffeur, to complement his salary, runs a small grocery store in the hinterland of Bath Island, near the railway lines. His is one of four ramshackle shops. Way back in September 1991 (whilst I was away in London), as he was returning on his bicycle one night from his shop to his sleeping quarters, a Suzuki van drew up at his side and a man leaning out of the window asked him directions to somewhere. As soon as my driver stopped, two men with guns and shrouded faces leapt out of the back of the van, grabbed him, shoved a hood over his head, threw him into the van and drove off, leaving his cycle on the road.

When the van halted after about a half-hour's drive, he was dragged out, hauled up some steps into a building, and a disembodied voice informed him he was in official custody. Should he choose to cooperate, he would be returned to the spot whence he was picked up. If not, well, said the voice, 'Bhutto was hanged, but Masood Mahmood was given a ticket to the US.' It was up to him.

What did they want? Well, next to his shop was an empty shop vacated some ten days earlier by an old man who could no longer afford to pay the rent. The voice said the old man was a spy who owned a wireless transmitter on which he communicated with 'the enemy' and my driver was suspected of being in cahoots with him, joining in the transmissions through a hole in the wall separating the two shops.

The poor chap was so dumbfounded as to be rendered speechless. And that is when the nasty stuff started. Still hooded, he was stripped naked, and a flame was brushed between his legs. He was then beaten, thrown on the ground, his ankles tied together, and the soles of his feet beaten. There was simply nothing he could tell them.

He was kept alone in a furnitureless room for five days and his clothes were returned to him. He was fed and watered and allowed to use a bathroom. When, on occasions, his hood was removed, he was warned not to raise his eyes or look at the faces of his captors. He was taken out several times a day, subjected to electric shocks, and repeatedly questioned about the wireless and the old man, and asked whether he had travelled out of the country or had visitors from abroad. Then, it all eased and for almost two months he was left alone in his room, on the floor, and occasionally taken out and questioned, without being subjected to any violence.

One November morning, his hood was removed and he was taken to a barber in an adjacent room where he was shaved and given a haircut and then photographed by a veiled photographer. The following night he was hooded, led out of his room, his watch strapped onto his wrist, the contents of his pockets and his money returned to him, less Rs.14 he was required to pay for paracetemol and soap supplied on his request.

He was escorted out of the building, put into a vehicle, and driven off. When it stopped, he was taken out, unhooded and warned not to tell anyone about his adventure - 'or else....'. He found himself and his bicycle less than a mile away from where he had been picked up. When he got back to his shop he learnt that his nephew had also been abducted and released at the same time. The old man had simply disappeared.

When my driver was found missing my men had naturally initiated their own search, visiting all the hospitals and police stations. My good old friend, Abdul Karim Lodhi, then a bureaucrat of Sindh, somehow managed to find out that he was in military custody. The then Chief of Army Staff, Asif Nawaz, helped in his release.

It was later confirmed that the 'official custody' in which he had been held for two months was that of the MI jointly operating with the ISI. Have our 'agencies' nothing better to do with their spare time than to harass innocent, poor citizens of their country?

And must our various governments, whether they be civil or military, inevitably make their best efforts to project us in the eyes of the outer world as a Fourth World Country?