Spare a thought for the local ‘exiles’

IT may have been a case of mountain out of a molehill given the projected estimate of casualties and collateral damage about September 10 but in the end, hapless citizens of Islamabad and Rawalpindi survived yet another steely test of their resolve.

There are, of course, political and military factors that contributed to averting the showdown — deportation is obviously, a favourite with the Aiwan-i-Sadr — but perhaps, for the agonised citizens of the twin cities, it was a relief not to see an addition to the statistics of bloody episodes and body counts. God knows how much strife they have endured over this year alone.

This, however, does not detract from the overkill that a panicked regime indulged to ward off the much-hyped return of a political opponent it had come to dread.

As with the Lal Masjid siege that the residents of Islamabad’s G-6 sector were subjected to during the Operation Silence, so, too, it seems were citizens, who fancied going to the Islamabad Airport on 9/10.

It was evident that the powers that be desperately wanted to silence a bigger and potentially, continuing threat than the one presented by the Lal Masjid clerics.

Only this time, the area of the operation was expanded with the one around Islamabad Airport designated as a red zone and an outer radius of 10 kilometres sealed to all kinds of traffic.

Thousands of personnel from the police, army, rangers, intelligence officials and other security apparatus were on hand to show the state’s muscle. Batons, riot shields, guns made up for the visible equipment while barbed wires, trucks, tractors and containers outside the roads leading to the airport were used as blockades.

Police manned five search points and rangers, standing on rooftops, cordoned off the airport perimeter. Cellphone coverage was blocked around the airport after the government jammed the networks in a peculiar move to thwart communication it deemed would help the cause of the deposed — and now deported, again — prime minister.

It doesn’t require great imagination to gauge how it must have affected those passengers, who had nothing to do with Nawaz Sharif’s abortive homecoming, but nevertheless paid for it.

A picture of virtually lost foreigners out on the road outside the airport carried by this paper on the Metro pages of its Islamabad edition was illustrative. With the unavailable network, not only would they have had trouble communicating with their loved ones or seeking emergency help, they probably had no means to travel outside with all traffic closed.

Attention to detail, except where it suits them, has never been a strong point with governments in this part of the world. It didn’t require Einstein’s genius: someone should have paid attention to what would happen to passengers wanting to disembark in Islamabad.

Though shuttles were in operation, it wasn’t really much help because these were too few to fulfil the demand. There was also a long wait for passengers bringing bodies of deceased relatives into Pakistan from abroad thanks to the regime’s pre-occupation with how it would handle Sharif.

Whatever happened inside the plane carrying the former prime minister, on the tarmac, inside the airport and the Airbus bound for Jeddah was shameful to say the least. It battered an already bruised image of Pakistan as an intolerant nation, whose rulers are singularly incapable of conducting themselves with any degree of civility and decency. So much for the propagation of ‘soft image’ and ‘enlightened moderation’.

What happened outside the airport — a blatant exhibition of siege mentality that virtually exiled citizens in their own country even if it was for a couple of days showed utter lack of vision. No-one can even imagine such a situation in any civilized country.

But, then, if we had a modicum of respect for the law, we wouldn’t reduce our cities and country to an expanded garrison, all undoubtedly in the name of security. It is a dreadfully familiar term that guarantees anything but security.

While it is all very well to seek the intervention of the apex court in a politically defining realm now that the season of justice is upon us — a welcome departure from the tame past — it is time the civil society came to the fore and helped citizens rid themselves of the roadblocks to their right of way (even literally).

Why should their movement be restricted and normal course of life disturbed for the inverted failure of a powerful few to come to terms with political reality?

Any number of concerned parents did not send their children to school in the twin cities on the said day out of the fear that harm could come their way. Much of the business also remained suspended until we had heard the last of the airport action. Surely, there are better and more civilised ways to deal with a situation than hold the cities that drive the country hostage to military whim.

The writer is News Editor at Dawn News in Islamabad. He may be contacted at kaamyabi@gmail.com