Daily Times

About a week ago, Islamabad Police raided a hotel in G-5 sector where a ‘dance party’ was underway and arrested at least 52 people including 17 women. The raid was ordered and supervised by Assistant Commissioner Capt (Retd) Shoaib Ali after complaint made by a journalist against the dance party and use of drugs and alcohol by the participants. These were the only common words in the conflicting statements of the senior officers of the District Management and Islamabad police when I spoke to them about the incident.

One officer said no traces or evidence of alcohol and drugs were found as were tipped off by the journalist, while another said there were some remnants. No one in the district management and the Islamabad police had an exact answer to my questions. If there were some traces of obnoxious activity, why were the ‘culprits’ released in a few hours after their arrest? If it was a lousy and crummy tip off, then what action has been taken against the complainant? Who is to be blamed for tarnishing the reputation of the women who were detained for being ‘involved in immoral activities’, without any solid proof against them?

How can the authorities raid parties and declare the attendees ‘call girls’? How long will law enforcers keep getting away with the violation of basic civil rights? The citizens seem to be scared of the high-handedness of the police and district management as they can implicate anyone in any case, and also create evidence for false accusations. Just like the way they can wipe off evidence in no time.

Both the district management and the police are reluctant to share the details of the organisers and the participants to counter verify the statements of the law enforcing agencies. The agencies had this to say: “They were some top notch elite and popular faces of the city and media. Our objective was to discourage such type of ‘parties’ in the city, not to defame and dishonour anyone.”

Society must not be dictated by extremist clerics or those having a similar mindset. The practice of cops raiding parties should be stopped

The flipside of the incident is that it was a ‘birthday party’ that became a dance party afterwards. The people were enjoying music and tobacco when the police raided and arrested all the participants. The FIR was also registered against the party participants for the violation of sections related to “use of loudspeakers and sheesha smoking — the violation of the amplifier and the tobacco control laws.”

Chaudhary Muhammad Shafique, the Member of National Human Rights Commission (NCHR) from the Islamabad Capital Region has a different take on it. He says, “We are not aware of full details of this incident. I can comment only if I have all the details and the complete picture of this raid. However, all citizens have equal rights and fundamental freedom with respect to privacy and social and recreational activities. If it was a private family function and no drugs and liquor was being consumed there, then nobody should have disturbed their privacy. The NCHR shall seek a report from local police and other sources and then we’ll make a decision on the future course of action.”

I am not in favour of any unethical, immoral and obnoxious practices and activities in our society, but that is within the limits of changing social fabric and cultural diversity. The religious rigidity defined by the closed-minded clerics must not overshadow the social liberty, cultural diversity and privacy of individuals. Rather society must have social space for everyone. This is what we term as plurality in society.

In the era of globalisation, cultural exposure has to invade our society to establish a new social fabric based on some cultural norms that may be alien to us, and sometimes may be contrary to our cultural heritage and social values. Even if some segments of our society do not accept it, society and its socio-cultural values are always subject to change, so must the commanding laws in society.

Society must not be dictated by extremist clerics and those having a similar mindset. The practice of cops raiding parties because of threats from extremist elements should be stopped.

The writer is an Islamabad-based policy advocacy, strategic communication and outreach expert. He can be reached at devcom.pakistan@gmail.com. He tweets @EmmayeSyed

Published in Daily Times, July 12^th , 2017.