Crime graph alarmingly high

THE crime graph in the city and its suburbs was on the rise while the police have failed to combat dacoities, robberies and other heinous crimes. The people were feeling insecure and demanded of the Punjab chief minister to provide protection to them.

According to statistics, Gujranwala was on top of the crime graph after Lahore in Punjab. No solid steps were being taken to arrest the culprits or recover looted goods.

Incidents of car theft have increased alarmingly as around two dozen cars have been stolen or snatched at gun point by robbers in broad daylight on GT road, including the new Suzuki cars of journalist Abdullah Khalid, lawyer Sheikh Eizad Masood and woman councillor Ms Samina Zareen Sidiqi, who informed DPO Dr Arif Mushtaq and Rescue-15, besides motorway police, about the incidents. But their vehicles could not be recovered despite arrest of accused. Dacoits killed a young jeweller, Muhammad Nadeem, after snatching cash and jewellery worth Rs2.3 million in Guru Nanikpura two weeks ago. All jewellers went on a shutter down strike but the accused could not be arrested.

SACRIFICIAL animals reached the city in reduced number while customers were avoiding buying the animals as Eidul Azha was still about two weeks away and they could not look after the animals due to non-availability of fodder during the intense cold. Instead, they were waiting for arrival of more animals in the market. According to a survey report, shepherds were demanding Rs10,000 to Rs12,000 for a healthy sheep or goat and Rs25,000 to Rs30,000 for a cow or a bull. A customer said that he bought a sheep for Rs5,000 last year. He said the prices of sacrificial animals were high and middle men were reluctant to buy sheep or goat and preferred to place a share in big size sacrificial animal. A shepherd pointed out that last year cold weather and rain caused heavy loss of sacrificial animals and traders were avoiding bringing their animals to the market on a large scale. He said that prices of animals have been increased in the market as the animals imported from India could not break the trend of high prices.

THE justice criminal committee meeting expressed dissatisfaction over the non-arrest of notorious proclaimed offenders by police and delay in completion of investigation. It urged ensuring the arrest of accused swiftly. Speaking at the meeting, district and sessions judge Mazher Hussain Minhas said here the other day that the number of non-arrested POs increased the list of wanted accused while investigating teams of police were submitting incomplete chargesheets to court without arresting the accused. Resultantly, files of these cases have been buried in almirahs without hearing. He stressed the need for arresting all accused, including POs, swiftly and sending of chargesheet against them to court after completing the investigation process.

DPO Dr Arif Mushtaq assured the meeting that solid steps would be adopted to ensure the arrest of wanted POs besides other criminals, and the investigation process would be completed within the shortest period.

OVER 1,500 destitute families have been deprived of monthly compensation from benevolent fund for the last six months. They demanded of the government and high-ups to release the funds for the purpose immediately. Some destitutes said here that the government was paying compensation from benevolent fund to families of deceased government officials who died during service every month while Rs1,300 were being paid to families of government officials of Grade 1-10, Rs1,700 of Grade 11-16 and Rs3,500 of Grade 16-18. He said compensation was not being paid to them for the last six months. Orphaned children of deceased government officials have been deprived of their requirement regarding new clothes and other items on Eid. They demanded of the Punjab Chief Minister and other high-ups to release the funds to enable them to participate in the jubilation of Eidul Azha.

When contacted, a District Coordination Office official confirmed it and said that benevolent fund of Rs70 million has been held up by the government from August and probably it was devoted to quake-affected people. It was stated that provincial mohtasib also sought a report from the government for non-payment of compensation to destitute families.

THE commuter associations expressed concern over the increase in fatal accidents and loss of life on Sialkot Road and demanded of Punjab Chief Minister and other high-ups that solid steps should be adopted to dualize the Sialkot-Gujranwala Highway.

General Manager (projects) North 416-Wapda House, Lahore, Brig Mushtaq Ahmad (retired), pointed out the other day that he travelled on this highway once every week and noted that the traffic volume had increased and there was not a single day when he did not witness either a head-on collision or toppling of a vehicle on this road. He requested the Punjab chief minister and Highways Ministry to detail someone to count the volume of traffic, the number of accidents and the loss of life for one month to decide what was required to be done. He suggested that if the government could not arrange the funds, the dualization could be floated in the media to find some investor on BoT basis. He expressed the hope that there would be many parties, including FWO (Frontier Works Organization) and NLC, willing to get the project on BoT like the Lahore-Sheikhupura-Faisalabad Highway undertaken by the FWO on BoT.

‘A few good men’

WHEREAS the Chaudhrys of Punjab may be upset with many of their party’s MPAs for thwarting an intra-party agreement over the construction of the Kalabagh dam, the opposition of the controversial project by some PML legislators comes as a ray of hope for many in that all has not been lost in this most dynamic of the federating units. This week’s party meeting, convened and presided over by the chief minister in Lahore, went to show that despite being in the king’s party at least some treasury MPAs had managed to stand their ground on the issue.

The point raised by the dissenters, that supporting the construction of the Kalabagh dam at a time when it had been rejected by their elected colleagues sitting in the other three provincial legislatures could not serve Punjab’s interests over the longer term, made sense. One MPA reportedly told the party gathering that if the dam were to be built at the cost of all others hating his province, he was ready to oppose it tooth and nail. This indeed is a politically mature way of looking at the issue which, unfortunately, continues to elude the PML’s top brass.

The leadership’s failure to extract an agreement out of the ruling party’s provincial legislators also proves yet again another valid, even if much-repeated point: the worse democracy is better than the best dictatorship. If the recent past is any guide, the establishment should know that no matter how handpicked the MPs, in a democratic setup an elected public representative is ultimately answerable to his constituents. Time has shown that some of the best choices for coveted, elected posts have made individuals come into their own. Most recently, the Sharifs were a good example of this.

Conversely, it can be argued that meddling with the political process every now and then may win you little battles, but the establishment’s war against the people’s will remains far from being over. The people and, by extension, their representatives, regardless of how the system might have been manipulated to put them in their positions, do eventually bounce back. That process seems to have begun in Punjab under the born-again PML’s shadow.

THE Rs36 million robbery at the railway’s pay office on Thursday, allegedly by one of the Railway Police constables and his three accomplices, was indeed a worrying development. The cash had been brought to the pay office for the disbursement of salaries to some 5,000 railway workshop employees in Mughalpura. The railway authorities have responded by suspending a number of officials and promising to bring the culprits to book. Robbery aside, it is quite shocking to know that the railway still uses the outdated system of disbursing salaries in hard cash. The absence of a bank branch at the Mughalpura workshop where employees’ salaries could be deposited comes as a rude shock in this day and age. Is it just one of those things that simply never occurred to the railway authorities all these years?

The premeditated crime, whereby the accused reportedly fed his colleagues food laced with sedatives to put them to sleep before he broke open the safe where the cash was kept, goes to show that the rot has permeated the entire railway system. How else could you explain the misconduct of the very person assigned the task of safeguarding the pay office by turning into a robber?

The city government, which some time ago handed over the traffic management of the area around the railway station to the Railway Police, should perhaps reconsider its move. True, the encroachments had been removed from around the roundabout in front of the station, but many of these have since resurfaced. Makes you wonder if it is the word ‘police’, with or without ‘railway’ as a prefix, that lends itself to such ready abuse.

SOME 150 Lahore-based writers, teachers and rights activists have signed a petition to condemn the harassment of historian Dr Mubarak Ali by unidentified quarters. The petition was initiated by the Punjab Lok Boli Sangat, which said that anonymous letters were being sent to publications and educational institutions to defile the scholar. Dr Ali, a vociferous defender of the rights of the middle and lower-middle class at the hands of political and religious elites, has often come in for sharp criticism for his views on history by what he calls the feudal-religious establishment.

The Sangat’s petition expressed solidarity with the historian and called on members of the civil society and the intelligentsia to ignore the vicious campaign being conducted against the scholar and his work. “The vitiating campaign launched by anonymous quarters is proof that the charges levelled against Dr Mubarak Ali are totally false and baseless,” it said, daring the people behind the campaign to make themselves known.

THE disturbing news from the team at Rescue 1122, the country’s only efficient and modern emergency service in the public sector, is that pranksters continue to block their phone lines. This makes it difficult for the genuine caller in need of emergency rescue to get through and, in that way, deceives the very purpose of having a toll-free number. The menace has grown to the extent that the operators manning the phone line in question reportedly receive up to 9,500 calls on an average day, out of which only some 20 are genuine.

The report went on to reveal that more than 20 per cent of the crank calls were made by women, and 10 per cent of the total calls made were outright abusive. Toll-free numbers across the world are notorious for this kind of behaviour by random callers, but that this should be happening in a country like ours where there is such a dearth of emergency and other social services is all the more loathsome. It points to the greater ill eating away at the core of society, for which each one of us must share at least part of the blame.—OBSERVER

N-exports ban: a bold move

THE notification to impose stringent export controls on nuclear and biological-related materials by Islamabad is bold and may be called a timely initiative. It must go a long way towards strengthening Pakistan’s image and credentials as a responsible nuclear state. The odium attached to it ever since the disclosure of Dr Abdul Qadir Khan’s illicit network must lose much of its sting even if not forgotten.

Although not a signatory either to NPT or the CTBT, Pakistan’s role and status as a committed non-proliferator should, in due course, be above reproach. Unlike India, which had to depend on the US as its ‘strategic partner’ to underwrite its credentials as a responsible nuclear state, Pakistan has done it on its own.

The notification, besides listing the goods placed under export control, re-affirms Pakistan’s policy to implement its national and international commitment in respect of non-proliferation. This is indeed a most welcome and refreshing departure from our traditionally reactive policy towards India and restricted policy towards the United States, especially in its war against terrorism.

Whether Pakistan stands to lose more than gain from its contribution to the US-led war remains to be seen. It’s, however, quite another issue with no relevance to Pakistan’s status as a nuclear state.

Pakistan’s export control inventory covers the entire scope of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and the Australian Group (AG) relating to biological weapons and toxins. It also covers the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) concerning the development and range of tactical strategic missile. None of the above is UN-mandated covenants like the NPT and the CTBT, but collective/group arrangements among the signatory countries.

There is yet another body in the category of group arrangements the so-called Zangger Committee, named after Prof Claude Zangger of Switzerland. The Zangger Committee was established to define what was meant in the NPT’s Article III by not only the ‘source or special fissionable material’ but also by ‘equipment or material especially designed or prepared for the processing, use or production of special fissionable material’. This was specially provided for to ensure that the parties concerned did not export such items to any Non-Nuclear Weapons State (NNWS), unless the source or special fissionable material is subject to safeguards. The committee completed its first ‘trigger list’ in July 1974.

In August of the same year, the governments of Australia, Denmark, Canada, Finland, West Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Soviet Union each addressed letters to IAEA subscribing to the ‘trigger list’. (South Asia on a Short Fuse by Bidwai/Vnaik and Going Nuclear by Leonard S. Specter). As for the Nuclear Suppliers Group, it was formed in London in 1975 following India’s first nuclear explosion in 1974, by seven industrially developed countries ‘working behind closed doors’ at US advice and initiative. It was a ‘broad-based’ group to ensure against the export of ‘sensitive’ nuclear technologies to future tactical proliferators. These countries were Canada, Germany, France, Japan, the Soviet Union, the UK and the USA.

The NSG now has over 15 countries as members, including some members of the former Warsaw Pact (Ukraine and Russia), the European Union and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The MTRC was established as a ‘Close Door Group’ in 1987 comprising all members, less France, of the NSG, ‘to restrict transfers or sales of missiles or its components above the range of 300km.

Pakistan announced the successful test-flight of its medium-range (under or up to 300km), Ghauri, in April 1998. A month later in May of the same year, India took the lead in conducting multiple nuclear tests, followed by Pakistan responding in kind.

It is interesting to note that in spite of notoriety Pakistan earned as a proliferator, in principal, it has been not only against proliferation but also for nuclear disarmament. On May 17, 2000, Pakistan reiterated that ‘it remains firmly committed to the goal of achieving general and complete nuclear disarmament, elimination of weapons of mass destruction or the regulations of small arms. Pakistan believes that the core, principle and objective of disarmament should be to assure equal security for all states, regardless of their size and status.’ Short of natural fossil fuel reserves and hydral power, however, Pakistan must generate some 8800MW of nuclear power by 2025 to meet its growing energy demands. The recently opened second phase of Chashma Nuclear Power Plant under construction by China Nuclear Corporation after Chashma-I would help Pakistan achieve its energy target as planned. Both Chashma I and II, under IAEA safeguards, are dedicated energy producers.

— The writer is a retired brigadier of Pakistan Army