There can be more than one
guess on the deadly attack of Hamid Mir on Apr. 19, 2014. Say, he was shot because of
his calls to respect the human rights of the Baloch, because he stood with Mama
Qadeer in his Long March (as said by him); Or, it was because he didn’t give
enough space to the Taliban’s viewpoint in his Capital Talk; or it’s because a
distraction was needed from the non-stop coverage of Musharraf in Karachi, and
so on. Similarly, the suspects in the
deadly attack of Mr. Mir can be more than one.
Although, Mr. Mir’s brother has alleged the chief of Inter Services
Intelligence, the players from disbanded fundamentalist organizations like,
Pakistan Taliban, Afghan Taliban, a host of religious and sectarian terrorists
as well as terrorists from each political parties cannot be ruled out. Mir was
targeted for political reason and not for any family and personal enmity, is out
rightly clear. That’s right; dear readers, Pakistan politics are a guess game.
Let’s do the guess.
On an average, one
journalist gets killed in the line of duty every 30 days. Almost 91 journalists have been murdered since 2000
due to which Pakistan has become the third most dangerous country for
journalists after Somalia and Syria; this was estimated in a seminar titled
‘International Journalist Day’ organized at the National Press Club (NPC)
Islamabad, on Monday Nov. 19, 2012.
Now the Pakistan government
has announced the formation of a Judicial Commission, comprising of three
senior judges of the Supreme Court for investigation on Mr. Mir’s murderous
attack and submission of its report within twenty-one days. Pakistan government will decide to implement
the commission’s recommendations. Also, the government has asked PEMRA
(Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority) to investigate into the Geo
News TV’s broadcasting Hamid Mir’s and his brother Amir Mir’s allegations on
ISI.
The media and the
people of all shades are skeptical of the Judicial Commission’s success. In the past, Pakistan has seen a series of
judicial commissions from Hamoodur Rahman Commission onward, going to the
archives shelves without implementing their recommendations by the respective
governments. Judicial commissions have
been used, it seems, to be a means to
cool-down the boiling sentiments of the people, the media and the victimized persons
and politicians of respective incidents.
How far the current Judicial Commission and the PEMRA will be successful
in probing and bringing to light the culprits behind the scene, and how far the
Sharif’s government would be able to implement the Commission’s recommendations,
and most importantly its implementation, only time will tell. The shadow of
doubts will remain till then.
The attempted murder case on Mr. Hamid Mir is one of the
singular cases in a sense that the target is not killed and remains alive
today. The allegations made by him and
his family will not be as simple and easy to distort and misinterpret by the
current Judicial or PEMRA Commissions as it was done in the preceding cases. The
inquiry commission on Saleem Shahzad murder had met 23 times and interviewed 41
witnesses, as well as examining a large batch of relevant documents. The report
said in its concluding remarks that Shahzad’s death should be examined in the
context of the “war on terror”. Hamid Mir has been receiving threats even today,
Apr. 27, 2014, asking him to leave the
country after he checks out of hospitalization,
daily Dawn English says.
If the two Commissions’ investigations and their reports
pin-point to non-state activists of
Taliban, al-Qaeda, or religious fundamentalists, their implementations will not be complex; but if the allegations
are proved on the shoulder of any state players, its implementation would be
complex and doubtful. Such a situation may produce in future, God forbid, any
phenomenon calling for death of democracy or a possible civil war.
Pakistan politics has a checkered history of the past. Pakistan
Military participation and interventions in its politics have been a necessary
evil from its very inception. The Law of
Necessity demanded such interventions in the beginning because of the absence
of any constitution on national consensus, any people’s parliament on adult
suffrage, any funds to run the country, any weapons to fight the enemy, any national
cohesion, so on and so forth. It’s a long list of Pakistan’s weaknesses. This
is no time and place to tell the youths of today and current generation of
Pakistan the social and political failures.
I am already presenting a glimpse on earlier Pakistan every week on the
subject in Urdu Times of New York, the only most popular Urdu weekly in the US.
There have been a long list of loots, the mismanagement of state affairs and
state treasury from politicians, landed and industrial elites, zimindars and vaderas.
This story is going on till today.
However, what is going on today between govt. and military is an
extension of the past faulty workings. To say there is no tension and misunderstanding
between the two institutions will be a lie and hypocrisy. The most politically infected Justice System
of Pakistan which grants impunity to sentenced criminals leaves no way for
aggrieved parties but to take the laws in their hand. Most of the extra
judicial killings in Pakistan, I think, are happening because of this faulty
judicial system of Pakistan.
The most appropriate step for survival of the nation and its
home border in today’s condition lies on the shoulders of government and
military alike. They are the captains of the ship. Let the government do its
job and let the Armed Forces do its job. I mean let each institution work as
watch-dog on the other according to law and constitution of the country; let not intervene and cross the line of each
other’s duties and obligations. The
honor, respect and dignity of Pakistan armed forces and its intelligence branch
of ISI demands not to dirt their hands in the nasty and dirty games of internal
politics of sectarian strife or shia-sunni fights or to be a party in political
terrorism. Of course, if Pakistan politicians and government fail to maintain
the law and order situation, and things go out of control to anarchy and risks
of national security, Pakistan military has to take the show in its hand. But for now, wisdom demands that ISI clarifies
its position to the Judicial Commission on the current allegations levelled by
Hamid Mir and Geo TV News. I believe Pakistan Military and its Intelligence
agencies must have the knowledge and information on how the heap of print and
digital media of the United States and Europe are seeing the affairs of
Pakistan Intelligence.
To me, the most appropriate reform of all kinds of maladies in
Pakistan lies in an overhaul of Pakistan constitution based on federal
democratic republic system. Otherwise I doubt any practical reform in
Pakistan democracy and in its society by having the current faulty system of
justice, national elections, bureaucracy and administration, city police
system, economic and foreign affairs, and so on.
A Persian couplet says which means ‘when a base-brick is laid
tilted, the whole structure goes titled.’
So is true with Pakistan. But I
am not hopeless. We cannot make any
decision just by analyzing Pakistan’s sixty-seven years of ups and downs. Sixty-seven years are a negligible period in a
nation’s life ahead. India was not born
on 15 Aug. 1947; the post-independent India was having a legacy of 300 years of
British India. It inherited all the paraphernalia of materials and systems of governance
of British India. 1947 was the year of only government change for India. In comparison,
Pakistan had only 20 crores in its treasury to run a country short of all kinds
of material, manpower and financial resources. Pakistan had no printing press even
to print its currency notes and postal stamps. I am witness of seeing the word “Pakistan”
rubber-stamped on all the British currency notes and postal stamps. This is no place to
list all the shortages Pakistan was facing just after its Independence.
At the time of Partition all institutions of governance were
centered in Delhi and Calcutta.
Railways, ports, all means of communications, radios, post and
telegraphs, were controlled from Delhi; all commercial and industrial centers
were in India; army, navy and air-force
headquarters were stationed in Delhi; all the sixteen ordnance factories and
their depots were in India. What efforts
and difficulties Pakistan had to face in getting its share from united India
are detailed in his book, Emergence of Pakistan, by Chaudhary Muhammad Ali. The
people and politicians of Pakistan can understand with one example. At the time of Partition, Pakistan had a
share of 75 crore out of a total of four arab rupees in the united India
treasury. India paid to Pakistan the
first installment of 20 crore rupees and
stopped subsequent payments. The
Congress tried its utmost to make Pakistan fail in all its affairs. Pakistan got rest of the money only when
Gandhi Jee declared his ‘Maran-bert’, fasting till death.
However, today Pakistan has a mammoth responsibility to work in
its each and every sector of country and state management. Every pillars of the country, updating of
constitution on basis of a democratic republic, reform in federal and state parliament
houses, reform in judiciary system, economy and finance management, center and
provinces relations, civil and military relations; all need to be taken care
afresh.
All the locks can be opened with one key—the key of willingness ,
sincerity and hard-work by all the people of Pakistan and and its managers.
ISRAR HASAN
APR. 28, 2014
hitt2010@gmail.com
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