Daily Times

“The reader of this report can easily fix the responsibility of the unfortunate Minhaj-ul-Quran incident.” This part of the Najafi report reads more like an epitaph in memory of public administration in Pakistan. For the state and the people of Pakistan, who find ways and means to rationalise everything; the Model Town bloodbath would be trivialised, forgotten and then repeated.

Just what would it take to shake our conscience? What has happened to our moral sensibility? Did we ever have any? As citizens, it is our shared obligation to contribute to offer advice in course correction. The Najafi report offers an opportunity for all of us to prevent truth, for once, from being sacrificed at the altar of power.

The report is simple in tenor and bold in its conclusions. It is meticulously structured laying out the complete picture of the Model Town tragedy. It casts damning aspersions on bona fides of senior officials in the Punjab administration. And does not hold back in crying foul over the attitude of the province’s bureaucracy — held hostage by a few provincial ministers. Despite the limited terms of reference, the report screams mass murder. The operation commenced in the wee hours of the morning, and was the product of nefarious motives hatched by the most senior officials of the administration.

Does the report claim any responsibility? No. The government of Punjab refused to confer powers under section 11 of Punjab Tribunals of Inquiry Ordinance, 1969 enabling the one-man Tribunal “to order a police investigation into any matter coming before it.” This is indicative of the government’s averseness for public accountability. The report noted that the decision not to confer powers under section 11 of the Ordinance; “circumvented the process of digging out the truth”. The Tribunal was tasked only to ascertain facts and circumstances of the incident, “without investigating, fixing responsibility or making recommendations.”

The report does not employ legalese and is addressed to a wider audience. It laboriously explains the ordeal of twelve hours — that began at 12:45 am under the command of SP Model Town. The report observes: “Police resorted to aimed fire which resulted into 10 deaths, (including two women, Shazia and Tanzeela) over 70 injured, out of which, 51 persons sustained bullet injuries.” These are not just statistics but human lives. Lives that were lost or permanently impaired due to state sanctioned terror. Those who survived may have to deal with the ghosts of the illegal operation for rest of their lives. So far, as far as context is concerned, with the delayed release of this report, the victims and their families have already been cast as irrelevant.

The Najafi report offers an opportunity for all of us to prevent truth, for once, from being sacrificed at the altar of power

Another alarming part of the report is the government’s gross disregard, and absolute contempt for the superior Courts. The report accounts that the participants of the operation had complete ‘knowledge’ of the orders passed by Lahore High Court in ICA No.155/2011. On completion of the operation, the report mentions, SSP Operations informed his superiors, it has ‘ended in a success.’ On the general attitude of non-corporation with the Tribunal, the report laments: “No police official, from top to bottom, whether actively participated in the operation or not, uttered a single word about the person under whose command the police resorted to firing upon PAT workers. Understandably, all were in unison for withholding the information from this Tribunal.”

Expounding the principle of criminology that a man may lie but facts and circumstances don’t, the report rejects the position taken by the Chief Minister: “The collected reports from all concerned and the affidavits submitted by the police officers in the field do not depict that any order of “disengagement” by the Chief Minister of Punjab was ever conveyed or received.” The report draws the inevitable conclusion that the police did exactly what they were sent out for.

Neruda in his poem: ‘I’m Explaining a Few Things’ clarifies why his poetry does not speak of ‘dreams’ and ‘leaves’ or ‘great volcanoes of his native land’. His answer: “Come and see the blood in the streets”. The poem, on the whole, is a powerful visceral description of the killing of innocent lives. Let the Model Town bloodbath not be another missed opportunity or a footnote in our history for poets and writers to explain. We will only have so many opportunities before the dignity of life is completely lost to us.

The writer is a Barrister of Lincoln’s Inn

Published in Daily Times, December 14^th 2017.