There is no dearth of laws in Pakistan. However, from one end of the country to the other, Karachi being a particular case, there is no application of the law. There is an overflow of disorder.
The Governor of Sindh, the ultimate ruler of the province who holds sway over even the chief minister, and his men in charge of provincial home affairs are members of a party which President General Pervez Musharraf has decided to espouse. We in Sindh have known its modus operandi well.
Shaista Almani, for no crime committed by her, is the victim of Sindhi feudal justice as administered by a tribal jirga. She fears for her life, though she is ostensibly under the care and protection of the Sindh government. If Nisar Khuhro, an MPA of the PPP sitting in opposition, is to be believed (PPI news item of March 20), Shaista now finds it difficult to scrounge around for one square meal a day.
The murder and alleged rape last month of two young girls has been conveniently forgotten - by the administration, that is, not by their families and friends. We have no information as to what has happened to the culprits, the two police officers who were initially held in custody. A member of the provincial assembly, Abdullah Murad of the PPP, was shot dead in broad daylight on a busy public thoroughfare. A helpless High Court judge who can only rely on evidence fed to him has been appointed to hold yet another enquiry.
A press report of March 20, is headlined 'Human rights state dismal in Pakistan.' On the page opposite, another news item tells us, that our man in Geneva called for a 'new approach to human rights issue.' A third news report of the same day headlined 'Governor wants security measures implemented' informs, and puzzles, us as apparently the Governor labours under the illusion that 'because of sustained efforts of the government law and order had improved in the province.'
If the past and experience is anything to go by, we must logically assume that for the unforeseeable future the people of this country, misguided, ignorant and illiterate as they are, will be prevailed upon to choose governments that serve themselves rather than those they represent. The population growth at the moment is in the region of ten births per minute (our total population should now be 160 million).
Ignorant, this country is doomed to remain. Right now, our minister of education who was alarmed by the inclusion of religious verses in the national biology syllabus and thus made a move to exclude them, is under attack from her party's allies, the MMA and is finding difficulty in justifying her action. Zubeida Jalal, like the rest of her ministerial colleagues, is helpless, either of her own choosing or through force of circumstance.
At this point, let us cast our minds back (at least those of us who can remember) to the old days of the British Raj when the presence of a single foot constable, armed with a baton, or at the most with a single bolt action single shot Lee Enfield .303, could spread peace and a feeling of safety throughout an entire area of this city.
The story I tell concerns the travails of a man called Polad Merwan Polad, a hail-fellow-well-met, a good citizen of Pakistan, a man who normally wears a smile upon his face, but who now for a while has been unable to smile.
The name Polad is derived from the Central Asian word 'pulad' which is used to denote crucible steel. It can be traced back to the Avesta, the sacred book of the Zoroastrians (to which faith both Polad and I adhere). 'Pulad,' over 1400 years ago, was considered to be the metal of the gods, the kings and heroes of those far gone days. Crucible steel, as produced in Central Asia, was made of refractory clay with quartz temper. The crucibles sat on the furnace floor and were fired until the steel was liquid, and then left to cool slowly. The result was a high carbon steel ingot.
Polad's great grandfather, Merwan Framji Polad, believed in education, that education would stand his progeny in good stead. As early as 1900, he sent his son, Framji Polad, to the BVS Parsi School and then sent him on to the Narayan Jagganath (NJ) High School (then the only one in the city). After school, Framji joined the Imperial Bank of India, and rose to be its area manager in Sindh. When the Bank opened it office in London, he was chosen to head it.
Framji in turn educated his son Merwan who after school went up to Christ College, Cambridge, and emerged as a Master of Arts. Whilst there he became a car and motorcycle aficionado and when he returned to Karachi he opened up a vehicle distribution firm known as Polad & Co. Merwan sold Oldsmobiles, General Motors trucks, Jaguars, and Matchless, AJS, Royal Enfield, Francis Burnett and Sunbeam motorcycles.
Merwan's son, Polad Merwan Polad took over the firm when he retired, and is still in business selling Suzukis from his Bunder Road premises. On March 3, a factory-made unregistered Suzuki Mehran on its way to the Polad showroom was stopped and carjacked. An FIR was lodged at the Ferozabad Police Station. Obviously, no one expects the car to be found and returned. On March 11, around closing time at 1900 hours, two young men dressed in shirts and jeans called at the showroom on busy Bunder Road and asked for details of CNG equipment. The unsuspecting chowkidars let them in. They turned out to be the vanguard of a raiding party of five armed men. The staff, who were closing shop, were held at gunpoint and the raiders collected whatever they could - cash, mobile phones and so on. They then attacked a five-foot tall Godrej office safe. They demanded the keys which the staff did not have, so they set about attempting to break it open with the 'hathiars' they had brought with them and whatever other tools they could collect from the car workshop.
It is impossible to break open a Godrej safe. All they could do was to summon a transport truck fitted with lifting equipment, which was obviously standing by as it arrived in a few minutes. It backed into the showroom on busy Bunder Road, the safe was rolled on to it and it drove off. That same evening FIR 154/2004 was lodged at the Preedy Street police station.
The safe contained cash, original property documents, share/bond certificates belonging to Polad and his family, and the valuables of many of his staff and friends which he held for them in safe keeping.
With a military-civil government of sorts now in power, with troops and Rangers all over the city (the Rangers having installed themselves in whatever property they can grab), the least the people of Karachi expect is that some semblance of law and order is imposed. But no, they are silly to expect so much.