Daily Times

Too many thoughts are
zooming by like scenes from a movie. Some may make sense to one and some may not. However, it is quite interesting to see how things unfold in the land of the pure. Take the most heinous crime of rape of a five-year-old in Lahore that shook the conscience of the entire nation. No words or sentences can comfort the family that is going through such an atrocity. The media, as always in search for some sensational news, gave it a great deal of drumming. Needless to say, as a result, the apex court took an immediate suo motu notice. With utmost respect to the honourable court, as intense, offensive and repulsive as this crime may be, the apex court has to allow the normal course of investigation to at least take its course. No doubt, the new civilian administration is still settling in and the gravity of the matter is enormous. But the preemptive suo motu leaves the impression that civilian administration and the law enforcement agencies are incapable of investigation, hence the apex court has to intervene. With respect to the apex court yet again, it still is not a good precedent as it creates the culture of actions solely based on judicial interventions. The culture of standard operating procedures needs to take root very firmly and it would fare very well in the longer run. Besides, in most developed countries, the apex courts strictly concentrate on the interpretation of the constitution and do not meddle with the legislative or the administrative functions of the government. Why so in the land of pure, if anyone has the answer, please help me with this one.

Next, as hinted the prior week, the much touted and publicized All Parties Conference (APC) and its aspirations fell flat on its face when the ‘angry brothers’, aka the Taliban, martyred the beloved soldiers of this nation, at the Pak-Afghan border. There you have it, the erosion of confidence even prior to the first step. It was pointed out just last week that the process of negotiations is very sketchy and difficult because of the Taliban’s dubious past and the track record. The splinter groups are too many and all may have a common agenda, but their actions may vary depending on their individual motivations and thought processes. It was heartening to see that Imran Khan finally changed his stance too and made a 180-degree turn on his prior statements about the Taliban. His condemnation, though well meaning and intentioned, only surfaced when a soldier belonging to his Niazi clan was martyred by these butchers. Why, Mr Khan, such a change of heart, just because the fallen soldier hailed from Mianwali? Sounds very petty, doesn’t it? What about the thousands who were not from Mianwali and who died in what you had always wrongly labelled, “Amreeka ki jang” (America’s war)?

The PML-N government is perhaps moving forward full throttle with the grand plan of reconciliation with the brutes and butchers. It was interesting to note that before the aforementioned APC was even convened, the newspapers were reporting the release of militant prisoners as a goodwill gesture. Even after the APC, based on the news items, the plan is intact, despite the martyrdom of the servicemen. Makes you often wonder what is it that the government has in mind. Will it provide a general amnesty to the bloodthirsty butchers and if so, what precedent will it set for the entire society? What worth would the constitution hold if certain people will have zero accountability and petty criminals would serve time behind bars based on the law of the land? I battle with these questions, but I am afraid I cannot come up with any answers that would make any sense.

The commercial hub, the city that raised me, also known as the ‘city of lights’ went into its usual descent into darkness all within a day. A former member of the Sindh Provincial Assembly was taken into custody on allegations of murder and violence. The party of the ‘educated and enlightened’ that literally controls the city was most understandably outraged. Their ‘Supremo’ from his chambers in London thundered and some ‘unknown people’ brought the city to an instantaneous halt. Interesting, isn’t it. No one knows who these unknown people are and where they come from. But any time the ‘thunderbolt’ is initiated from the land of the River Thames in England, its effects are felt within minutes at no other place but the city thousands of miles away by the Arabian Sea, called Karachi. As soon as the weather-related signals emerge from Edgware Road, they tend to weaken the city and then it comes back to normalcy almost instantaneously yet again. The twitter sphere usually reflects the sudden outrage, the condemnations and the cries. The newspapers are now reporting that the gentleman has been released and it was a case of mistaken identity. This begs a very naïve question. Why arrest someone without credible evidence and then later on release the same person for lack of evidence? If you have the answer to this mystery, then please enlighten me as well. I am afraid you will be as riddled and perplexed as I am.

The writer is a Pakistani-American mortgage banker. He blogs at http://dasghar.blogspot.com and can be reached at dasghar@aol.com. He tweets at http://twitter.com/dasghar