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| The police is only there to protect the elite while the general public rots in an open hell. (Photo: Dawn.com) |
Today, they killed a man. They rained bricks on him until he couldn’t breathe or move. Until he was dead. It wasn’t too long ago when the world whimpered and bawled at the horrendous public lynching of two innocent brothers. Protests were held, the youth cried for justice, the government parried about with unusual haste if only to silence their critics; but I ask, who is going to raise the humdrum on this issue on which the mass media has baulked? Let’s not forget that this incident is equally grave, and brutal. Details are sketchy, but it appears as if two lawyers are responsible for this atrocity. It appears the torch bearers of the law themselves have decided the law isn’t worth upholding anymore.
Ever since the Lawyers’ Movement started, which metamorphosed into the Movement for the Restoration of the Judiciary, we have seen incidents involving lawyers engaging in dishonorable acts with increasing ferocity. They beat up any man, woman and child whenever they feel like it. Then they boycott the courts leaving the claimants of justice out in the dry. Apart from this amazing professional misconduct which is thought of as heroic, the social and moral compasses of these lawyers also seem to have started pointing towards the south. There is no doubt in my mind that the lawyers will whimper and cry if the police decides to arrest the two who have been charged with murder.
It seems as if we are hell-bent on proving ourselves to be vicious and morally dead. After the massive cyber debate that occurred as a result of the murder of Muneeb and Mughees Butt, the columnists, bloggers, tweeters, writers, the whole lot, had a field day in putting their views across for all and sundry to see and hear. They said we shouldn’t blame the Pakistani culture and nature for inciting violence because even in America such incidents occur. But do they have any moral capacity left now to declare that Pakistan is not a country of violence, when educated lawyers murder hapless citizens?
Granted that this country has never paid any attention to the development of the social index of its people but that does not absolve us of any responsibility. We have all been too intensely involved in squabbling over meaningless stuff such as who is a Muslim and who isn’t. Our thinking skills are also lack the foresight and vision needed to overcome this cultural and societal impasse. The majority of the rich elitist class is unable to connect to the common people, but they have found a perfect solution and that is to segregate themselves from the majority. Consequently they are only found in their comfort zones which include luxurious super malls, palatial mansions and flashy cars, extravagant entertainment facilities where the poor and the common will never dare set foot. They have built cocoons nestled right in the middle of the sea of misery, anger, rage and frustration that is running extremely high. Who then do we expect to come rescue us?
Examples of neglect, disregard and abandonment stare us in our eyes every day. The police refuses to do its duty, the army stands with contemptuous pride only to protect the cantonments where the king makers live, and the judiciary chugs along in a system marred with numerous injustices, corruption, and ineptitude. Who to and where does one turn to seek respite then, if not to take matters into his own hands? The pent up frustration inside is blowing up in new and unimaginable ways. No one seems to have any regard left for life itself. Innocent people have resorted to committing the biggest sin of all and even then are unrepentant. It seems as if we are in an orgy of shameless moral, ethical and social decays and despite wanting out, we are only sinking deeper into the quagmire with every passing day.
There is no magic bullet solution to all this mess. Everything will have to be sorted out step by step and one by one. There is an urgent need to introduce police reforms. The ones that were introduced in the Musharraf era were a step in the right direction, however since the Police Order of 2002, no new legislation vis-à-vis the police has been done or seen, or even been debated upon. The incumbent judiciary has inadvertently decided to extrapolate itself as the greatest barrier against mass exploitation of the masses, however it is increasingly turning into a dictatorial house of power. As such, the judicial reforms are also long overdue to ensure speedy and timely justice to the masses. The army needs to go back to the barracks and needs to fine tune its intelligence capabilities (ironic really, because we never really stop hearing about how ingenious are intelligence collection is) to ensure that innocent citizens don’t die in sinister games that they have got nothing to do with. Instead of manning useless pickets which only serve as a nuisance and a reminder to the general public that it is the army that is truly in charge, the army needs to up its ante and focus its energies on eradicating the terrorists. Only then will some semblance of orderliness begin to emerge.
