Daily Times

“There can be no justification for the killing of innocent people regardless of the cause or pretext,” thundered Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif in his virtual address at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) summit. Rightly so, because there have only been a handful of countries that have suffered more at the hands of the hydra-headed monster than Pakistan. War on Terror costing us more than $150 billion in economic losses while trampling over more than 70,000 Pakistanis remains an open secret. But when the honourable premier reiterated his resolve to fight for the sanctity of human life, had he very conveniently forgotten the hordes upon hordes of those killed by the branches of his own state? Should acts of terrorism only be condemned with “full vigour and conviction” when committed by our enemies? Whatsoever became of the cauldron of police brutality reeking underneath his nose? According to the staggering statistics making rounds on social media, as many as 100 “encounters” shone in the glittering light during a 10-month tenure of an SSP posted in Hyderabad. A few months earlier, Punjab police’s obsession with their way or the highway mantra was similarly reflected by the unbelievable 612 killed in the name of spontaneous, unavoidable operations during the last five years. Considering the lofty pledges by the government in the wake of the heart-wrenching Naqeebullah murder and shootout in Sahiwal, there should have been a string of police reforms underway that ordered men in uniform to realise their subserviency to the law. Uncomfortable changes are easier said than done. It takes enormous courage and painstaking determination to rid the entire policing department of the black sheep and usher in an era of accountability. After all, looking the other way as rogue officers continue to play the part of hired mercenaries does not risk the ire of influential feudals or political bigwigs. So what, if record books are littered with the bloodstains of innocent men and women forced to pay the price of their measly status in the pyramid or the irrevocable damage incurred to the supremacy of law and order. In the eyes of the mighty, justice languishes as nothing more than a social construct! *