Daily Times

Mayaben Kodnani, former minister for women and child development of Gujarat has been sentenced to extended life imprisonment by a court for the massacre that ravaged Naroda Patiya in February 2002 and saw nearly 1,000 Muslims killed according to the official record. Rape, burning people alive, torture and dismemberment of bodies that were later strewn across Naroda Patiya made the massacre the worst ever communal pogrom in India’s post-independence history. The international community was shocked at the level of communal violence and some NGOs in their private investigations found the death toll to be around 5,000. The then Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, who happens to occupy that post even today, instead of stopping or controlling the violence, in fact directed the killing fields staged in reaction to the death of 59 Hindus in a train set on fire at Godhra on its way to Gujarat. Tracing the Godhra incident to the demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992 by Hindu militants, the bloodletting of Muslims in Gujarat was justified by the then government in power of the Bhartiya Janata Party and the Chief Minister himself as the natural unfolding of events manifesting Hindu sentiments that went wild in the wake of the Godhra incident. Though Narendra Modi, believed to be the main architect of the Gujarat pogrom, has remained beyond the reach of the law, the conviction of 32 people, including a former minister, is a sign of justice being served at least partially.

Can Pakistan imagine anything even similar to this? We have a number of terrorists, fanatics and murderers running amok but they remain beyond the (shortened) arm of the law. All democracies evolve. Ours has not had that luxury so far. But even if our democracy is still flawed and weak, steps leading to a mature democratic dispensation have to begin somewhere. What could be a better starting point than taking to the path of an effective and impartial legal system? A non-discriminatory justice system is the only way to ensure a terrorism-free society of a peaceful, tolerant and law abiding nature. Pakistan still lacks effective anti-terrorism laws, the absence of which has turned out to be a bonanza for the terrorists, set free from jails owing to lack of evidence, weak investigation and prosecution and lack of protection to witnesses. All this seems hard to believe for a country literally ripped apart by a singular scourge. The wheels of justice, even if they grind slowly, as happened in the case of Gujarat where it took ten years to bring the case to a conclusion, need to grind fine in earnest in Pakistan to keep the country from falling completely into the pit of lawlessness. *