LAHORE, July 26: Describing the Sialkot jail killings as a symptom of the administration’s near-complete decay, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has called for urgent steps to revamp the institutions of governance, and raise them to minimum standards of responsibility and efficiency.

In a statement issued here on Saturday, the HRCP said the incident, the most gruesome event of its nature in the history of the country, was a cruel reminder of the extent the state system had become dysfunctional.

“Everything seems to have gone wrong on the occasion. The sessions judge’s decision to take with him an unusually large party of subordinate judges on a jail inspection might have been motivated by a desire to offer them useful exposure to prison conditions, but it was apparently not planned with the requisite care. The hostage-takers are described as members of a notorious gang. Why were they afforded possibilities of a concerted criminal act? This and their acquisition of firearms only reveal collapse of discipline at the prison. The nature of the action planned by them, even after making allowances for their criminal inclinations, attracts attention to the provocation the oppressive atmosphere in jails offers to the detainees.”

The statement further said: “Newspaper reports indicate that negotiations with the hostage-takers lacked both skill and imagination and that the so-called commandos were not adequately trained for the job entrusted to them. The incident demands introspection on the collapse of the system of administration. While those directly responsible for the grizzly affair must be put on the rack, the incident reveals a deeper malaise that has eroded the administration’s capacity to perform its routine duties even at levels witnessed till some years ago. What is happening at lower levels of the administration is obviously the result of rot at the top.