Daily Times

The repeatedly changing statements of the Punjab Police and its Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) have led to doubts and reservations about their version of the Sahiwal killings.

The CTD’s conflicting statements clearly reflect on attempts to cover-up the incident staged on Saturday on the GT Road in Qadirabad area near Sahiwal. Apparently in a staged encounter, police gunned down three family members and their friend in what it called ‘a shootout with terrorists’.

The initial CTD statement said: While Khaleel, his wife Nabeela, elder daughter Areeba and friend Zeeshan were killed on the spot, the couple’s minor son sustained a bullet injury and two other daughters remained safe. The family was travelling in a car when the alleged encounter took place which the CTD officials later termed an ‘intelligence-based operation’.

The CTD spokesperson said “Four people, including two women and Daesh local commander Zeeshan, have been killed and one child has been injured in the cross-fire. The suspects were kidnappers and three children were recovered from them. A CTD team tried to intercept a car and a motorcycle near the toll plaza, however the people in the car started firing at them”.

The spokesperson said that the deceased were high-level targets who were also involved in the kidnapping of former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s son. The operation was conducted as follow-up of the one in Faisalabad which took place on January 16.

As we wait and see how the JIT report will turn out, insiders and the political pundits have already expressed their reservations on the outcome of the JIT probe

The CTD claimed, “They used to travel with families to avoid police checking. Today, they were warned to surrender but they resorted to firing, the CTD statement read, adding that Shahid Jabbar, Abdul Rehman, and another unidentified suspect fled from the scene on a motorcycle. The recoveries include suicide jackets, hand grenades, rifles etc.”

The cell-phone videos captured by eyewitnesses – passengers in other vehicles stopped at the place of the horrifying incident – negate all the CTD statements. Shamelessly, the CTD registered a case against the deceased instead of accepting its officers’ crime. The video clips and the statements of the surviving children are ample evidence of the bloodshed the CTD is responsible for. Rumours about the CTD’s high handedness have been in the air for long. But its officers’ professional behaviour was never checked or cross examined. Rather the police high-ups and the ruling political hierarchy always defended the department.

The same ‘pleasant and privileged responsibility’ was gratefully fulfilled by three of the ministers in the present Punjab government; Law Minister Muhammad Basharat Raja, Minister for Housing and Urban Development Mian Mehmood-ur-Rasheed, and Information and culture minister Fiazul Hassan Chohan.

The law minister without any hesitation and embarrassment read out a statement that was combination of misleading and contradictory CTD positions on the issue. Regrettably, every official statement since the incident has attempted to defend the CTD’s act, without there being any documented or verifiable evidences. On the other hand, the video clips from independent and impartial sources shouts of deliberate killing of the common people who didn’t attack the CTD officials or offered any resistance.

Counter terrorism has become an important agenda for many good reasons, and work has been underway on the front to prove that Pakistan is actively engaged in complying with international obligations. Sometimes, the actions of the law enforcing agencies speak of nonsense and absurdity. But many bigwigs come to defend them without any evident rationale. The present incident is another fresh example.

To date, many such cases have surfaced where high handedness was proven. The justice was done in some cases as courts of law gave decisions against the high handedness of the law enforcing agencies. But, who pardoned the accused after every decision against them? I remember one such case where an unarmed young man from a minority community was killed by an official of Sindh Rangers in broad daylight in Karachi. After a long process of hearings in different courts, the killers were awarded death sentence, and the President of Pakistan pardoned them. Rao Anwar, the ill-famed Karachi police officer and fake encounter specialist, is still at large. When such criminals would remain free, who would have trust in the justice system?

The Punjab government has formed a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to probe the Sahiwal incident. Law minister Raja Basharat, along with two other ministers, has shown the Punjab government’s commitment to go by the JIT report not the CTD report that has already been submitted to the provincial government. As we wait and see how the JIT report will turn out, insiders and the political pundits have already expressed their reservations on the outcome of the JIT probe.

Punjab police is best known for its politicisation and fake encounters undertaken on directives of higher ups in the name of counterterrorism. This case seems hardly any different from incidents reported in the past. Though the CTD claims to have recovered weapons but no evidence has been presented that goes against the victims. Unfortunately, Punjab government’s actions seem to be saving the CTD officials involved in the incident. If that is not the case, why haven’t the 16 CTD officials involved been named in the FIR lodged by Jaleel, the brother of deceased Khaleel?

The writer is an Islamabad-based policy advocacy, strategic communication and outreach expert

Published in Daily Times, January 22^nd 2019.