Incidence of lawlessness from Rojhan to Shahwali has hit the headlines in the backdrop of spate of attacks on gas pipelines starting in the third week of January last. A police DSP and two passengers have been killed while several others injured by the highwaymen.
Apart from this, kidnapping for ransom on the highway has become a routine. The outlaws, who are believed to be the Bugti tribesmen, have so far kidnapped several police officials and members of the influential Mazari chief’s family. Rojhan police SHO Farooq Leghari and two constables were kidnapped on Jan 26 last while patrolling on the Indus Highway.
The kidnapped officials remained in detention for almost two months and were released reportedly after paying ransom. Sirajuddin Mazari and Haroon Mazari, relatives of Punjab Assembly Deputy Speaker Shaukat Mazari, were kidnapped last month on the Indus Highway. The Mazari tribe’s elders tried their best to get them freed without paying ransom to preserve what they called Balochi honour, but to no avail.
A senior politician belonging to the Mazari tribe, who was said to be in the cardinal of the PNA movement in 1970s, had reportedly tried out his links in the Bugti tribe to get Siraj and Haroon released, but was told that they had been kidnapped to avenge the killings of two Bugtis belonging to Raija sub-clan by Mazaris’ Lond and Khird sub-clans in 1994.
The elderly politician was told by his counterpart in the Bugti tribe that they (Mazaris) had either to pay ransom or face repercussions of murder. Haroon was released reportedly after paying ransom while Siraj, a storage officer in the provincial food department, is still languishing in captivity.
While the law-enforcers claim time and again to have made elaborate security measures, the highwaymen make a mockery of these claims every time. A local elder remarked that deployment of Rangers, the Punjab constabulary, Elite force and police had made no difference to the outlaws’ activities.
On Friday last, some bandits shot dead a bus passenger and kidnapped another besides injuring a reserve police inspector hardly a few kilometres from Rojhan morr, a locality supposed to have a police picket. An armour personnel carrier fitted with a light machine-gun was reportedly patrolling on the highway when the gang was on the rampage. It was learnt that the bandits tried to snatch the APC from police, who preferred driving away the vehicle to save themselves. However, the authorities claimed as usual that the police exchanged fire with the highwaymen. No report of injury to any outlaw has so far been revealed during the recent strikes.
The fact is that the police officials posted at Rojhan are scared of the highwaymen, especially after attacks, kidnapping and killing of their colleagues. When contacted on telephone, the Rojhan police station officials refused to talk on issue, but only murmured: “Pray for our lives.” They, however, said their high-ups were hiding the factual position from the authorities, risking their (field staff’s) lives.
Rajanpur DPO Chaudhry Muneer told this correspondent that the officials had a reason to be scared, as the outlaws possessed arms of superior quality. He said they (bandits) usually surprised the law-enforcers with time and place of their attack. He added that manning the highway at night was not an easy task.
The DPO said there was no doubt that the assailants came from Balochistan, where the authorities seemed least bothered to check infiltration of outlaws into neighbouring provinces. He said the police had sought help of the Baloch levies and Border Military Police to man the inter-provincial border along Balochistan.
The Baloch levies and the BMP consist of personnel from hill tribes resided alongside the Suleman range in Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur districts. These forces were established by the rulers of British colonial era in 1870s to maintain law and order in the wild hill tribes through their own tribesmen. Initially, the move proved fruitful. However, the authorities started ignoring the forces having tribesmen after independence in 1947.
According to an observer, tribal culture and life style in Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur are not different from what these were 56 years ago.
When contacted, Baloch levies commandant Dr Raheel Saddiqi, a DMG officer, said his force was still relevant to control law and order situation in the tribal belt and its adjoining areas. He said where the police avoided patrolling on the Indus Highway in dark, he and his force patrolled on foot in the troubled area a few days ago.
He said nobody wanted to risk lives by challenging the outlaws who, according to him, had their hideouts in the plains of Sindh and the Punjab, though they belonged to the Bugti tribe.
Dr Raheel said the Baloch levies and the police had recently agreed that each force would set up two pickets on the highway. The levies had set up the pickets while the police had yet to do it, he added.
He suggested that convoys should be formed as an immediate step to provide security to the commuters on the highway. The police, BMP and levies should be given the task to jointly guard the troubled spot because the situation on the highway demanded extraordinary steps to restore people’s confidence in law enforcement agencies, he stressed.