THE extrajudicial killing by a senior superintendent of police of Naqeebulllah, a 27-year-old aspiring model hailing from South Waziristan is a blatant example of the violation of Article 9 and 10A of the Constitution of Pakistan. The extra-judicial murder begs several questions.

Did Naqeebulllah have a previous criminal record? If so, why was he not arrested and tried in a civil court? How is it that he had been living and running a clothes business in Karachi for so many years?

One has to stretch one’s incredulity to infinite limits to believe the police version of events after hundreds of photos of Naqeebullah as a model went viral. The most heartbreaking ones among them are of the hapless youth modelling with his little son, who seems no more than five or six years old. A very strange profile, indeed, of a terrorist or an extremist.

The police are supposed to be life-savers and not life-takers. Life is a fundamental right safeguarded in the constitution. It is good to know that a high-powered impartial inquiry committee has been formed.

Let Naqeebullah’s brutal murder be the rallying cry for civil society to say enough is enough and demand rule of justice not jungle law.

Muhammad Imran Qazi

Sargodha

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2018