Daily Times

The Sindh government issued a notification in the early hours of Thursday, extending special policing powers assigned to the Rangers in the province for a month. Chief Minister (CM) Qaim Ali Shah said that the provincial Assembly would later deliberate on the confirmation of their powers and deployment in urban centres under Article 147 of the Constitution. Former president and PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari talked to Qaim Ali Shah over the phone from Dubai on Wednesday asking him to expedite the process to issue the notification regarding extension in the duration of the Rangers’ policing powers in Sindh. It appears that the PPP leadership has realied that in the event the Rangers’ stay is not extended, Karachi may become hostage to various mafias to the detriment of political parties, the government and the nation at large.
Addressing a press conference hours before the expiry of the deadline, Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said the Centre had been communicating with the provincial government on the issue of an extension in the Rangers’ operational powers and that the federal government would receive the Sindh government’s requisition for extension of the Rangers’ stay soon. It has to be mentioned that when the Rangers raided Nine Zero two months ago and arrested activists and convicts of the MQM, the PPP found this act of the Rangers to be appropriate. However, after the Rangers raided some Sindh government offices to find out the linkages between illegal wealth and funding of terrorists and criminals, PPP leaders lost their cool and went berserk. On the other hand, the MQM demanded the deployment of the army to get rid of the terrorists, as other militant groups had become a threat to the MQM’s exclusive preserve.
If the Rangers are withdrawn before taking this operation to its logical conclusion, mafias will raise their heads again and could cause irreparable damage to the country. In fact, already a lot of time has been wasted in mollycoddling the political and confessional parties. Before the Rangers started their operation, city cops had more than once stated that political and religious parties’ activists were involved in Karachi’s ravaging violence. They also suggested to the government to ask those parties to hand their militant elements over to the police. This is not the way to fight terrorism. In fact, it was their duty to nab them and put them in the dock. If political and religious parties’ activists were involved, the parties are equally culpable. Having said that, it is time to bury the ghost of vile charades once and for all.
The Supreme Court (SC) in its verdict on Karachi in 2011 had stated that the MQM, PPP and ANP have their militant wings in Karachi, which must be disbanded and criminal elements brought to book. The court said that “banned outfits, including the Sunni Tehreek, are involved in extortion, while there are allegations of the same offence against parties such as the PPP, Jamat-e-Islami (JI), ANP and MQM.” Even a man on the street knows that political and confessional entities were wholly embroiled in a no-holds-barred war to capture the beleaguered city and make it an exclusive preserve. Now the government and law enforcement agencies should show zero tolerance for criminals and their criminality. And if, in the process, they have to tread on some political, ethnic or confessional toes, so be it.
Karachi is an economic hub; it contributes more than 70 percent to the country’s revenues. Hence, the city’s peace, tranquillity and security are critical, and showing the stern face of the state is called for. However, politicos are likely to gang up against the institutions that have started moving against those involved in corruption. Meanwhile, the SC reprimanded National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Chaudhry Qamar Zaman for not investigating major scandals. The court told the NAB chief it had been informed that NAB was doing nothing against big fish involved in major scams that had caused enormous loss to the exchequer. During the hearing of a case related to the suspension of the investigation into the privatisation of a bank, the court ordered the NAB chief to submit a report with details of 50 major financial scams, 50 land scandals and 50 cases of misuse of authority, which were indeed submitted.
The court also ordered NAB to submit a separate report within a week on the privatisation of Muslim Commercial Bank (MCB). It appears that NAB has decided to go after the big fish as directed by the SC. NAB has always claimed having collected billions of rupees in plea bargains but the amount recovered was only a fraction of the wealth plundered by influential persons and those belonging to big business. Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif, inaugurating a signal-free corridor of the Islamabad Highway the other day, said that those who had plundered the national exchequer should be held accountable. Immediately after the 2013 elections, addressing the PML-N parliamentary party he said: “Let us make a promise that we will not tolerate corruption in the country and our government will hold looters and plunderers of the national exchequer accountable.”
In 1996, Transparency International declared Pakistan to be the second-most corrupt country in the world where corrupt politicians, bureaucrats, black marketers, smugglers, tax evaders and drug mafia elements were ‘rewarded’ through general amnesty schemes or through opportunities to whiten their black money. Measures should be taken to stop unethical and corrupt practices. In Pakistan, corruption is the real challenge apart from terrorism and the law and order situation. Unfortunately, corruption has not only deprived the national exchequer of its revenues and eroded the profitability of state sector enterprises but has also destroyed the very fabric of society. There is awareness among the masses and civil society will pressurise the government and its agencies to nab those who have plundered national wealth. Since the names of members of all ruling parties — past and present — are included in the list provided to the SC, they are criticising NAB, though it implemented the orders given by the SC.

The writer is a freelance columnist. He can be reached
at mjamil1938@hotmail.com