JANUARY 17 marked the first anniversary of the sordid incident in which a police posse in Sahiwal shot and killed a taxi driver, a man, his wife and their teenage daughter, in front of their three other younger children.

A citizen made a video recording of the police barbarity using a cell-phone and the video went viral. Later when the media highlighted the crime the police cooked up many claims that the vehicle occupants were terrorists and had shot first at the police. This proved to be outright lies.

This was a clear case of extra-judicial killing. The trial of the killers, however took nine months and they were set free in November, for ‘lack of evidence.’ The government ‘appealed’ against the verdict and that is the last we have heard of this sorry episode.

So much for Naya Pakistan. Justice in Pakistan remains highly selective. This offers the people little hope that the nation will ever achieve even a minimum level of morality.

Zohare Ali Shariff

Karachi

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2020