Daily Times

“The laws of morality are the same everywhere and…there is no action which would pass for an act of extortion, of peculation, of bribery, and of oppression in England, that is not an act of extortion, of peculation, of bribery and oppression in Europe, Asia, Africa and all the world.” (Edmund Burke, in his opening speech at the impeachment of Warren Hastings in 1788)

On Tuesday, the US blacklisted former Malir Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Rao Anwar, for engaging in “serious human rights abuse” by carrying alleged fake police “encounters” in which scores of individuals, including Waziristan native, Naqeebullah Mehsud, were killed.

“During his tenure as SSP in District Malir, Pakistan, Rao Anwar Khan (Anwar) was reportedly responsible for staging numerous fake police encounters in which individuals were killed by police and was involved in over 190 police encounters that resulted in the death of over 400 people, including the murder of Naqeebullah Mehsud…(Anwar) helped to lead a network of police and criminal thugs that were allegedly responsible for extortion, land grabbing, narcotics and murders,” the US Treasury said in a statement.

Earlier last year, after protests by the civil society and anger on the social media in Pakistan, the Supreme Court had taken a suo motu and ordered Anwar’s arrest. He was arrested in March 2018. After spending more than three months, an anti-terrorism court granted him bail, which led to his release.

Notwithstanding its acts of omission and commission, the US sometimes, very aptly, pinpoints the flaws that we usually wish away as hegemonic interruptions.

Let’s take a couple of similar precedents from our neighbour India. Both countries are post-colonial states. On Tuesday, the US Commission on Religious Freedom sought sanctions against Indian Home Minister, Amit Shah, and other principal leadership if the controversial Citizenship Amendment Bill was passed by the parliament, reported Scroll.in.

The bill remains passed to this day.

Likewise, Mr Narendra Modi was barred from the US in 2005 for failing to stop anti-Muslim riots. The State Department invoked a law, passed in 1998, which made foreign officials responsible for “severe violations of religious freedom” ineligible for visas. Being twice elected the PM of India, Modi’s case raises the question of what makes our crimes or criminals stand away from those in the rest of the civilised world?

Let’s come back to Pakistan where our former president, Mr Zardari, when asked about Rao Anwar and his whereabouts (he was in the hiding), proudly said, “Maira bacha hai woh, bahadur bacha (He is my child, a brave child.”

Meanwhile, father of Naqeebullah Mehsud died this week; fighting cancer and cases to bring his son’s “killer” to the justice. The great politician, Mr Zardari, was granted bail on health purposes.

By the way, it is not specific to Zardari Sahib. Almost all parties and leaders have got these “bahadur bachas (brave children),” who run their shadow politics and businesses.

As this development occurred, the respectable lawyers of Pakistan were busy vandalising the Punjab Institute of Cardiology where four patients have died to date.

In another ironical show, the sick and impoverished people of this country are on roads; demanding to send their leaders to costly foreign hospitals from the prisons.

And the sad facet of this tragedy is that not everyone corrupt is in the prisons. The choice is arbitrary, and only the civilians are to be incarcerated. Here lies the difference between participatory democracy and a spectators’ democracy.

Dostoevsky had intended “Crime and Punishment” to be a first-person narrative and a confessional account. Ultimately, he had switched to a third-person omniscient voice that plunged the reader right into the protagonist’s tormented psyche. It was great indeed but some literary critics claimed that Dostoevsky had (or had to) alter the last part of the “Crime and Punishment,” perhaps owing to the similar compulsions that we feel in Pakistan!

The US, sometimes, very aptly, pinpoints the flaws that we usually wish away as hegemonic interruptions

“The laws of morality are the same everywhere and…there is no action which would pass for an act of extortion, of peculation, of bribery, and of oppression in England, that is not an act of extortion, of peculation, of bribery and oppression in Europe, Asia, Africa and all the world.” (Edmund Burke, in his opening speech at the impeachment of Warren Hastings in 1788)

On Tuesday, the US blacklisted former Malir Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Rao Anwar, for engaging in “serious human rights abuse” by carrying alleged fake police “encounters” in which scores of individuals, including Waziristan native, Naqeebullah Mehsud, were killed.

“During his tenure as SSP in District Malir, Pakistan, Rao Anwar Khan (Anwar) was reportedly responsible for staging numerous fake police encounters in which individuals were killed by police and was involved in over 190 police encounters that resulted in the death of over 400 people, including the murder of Naqeebullah Mehsud…(Anwar) helped to lead a network of police and criminal thugs that were allegedly responsible for extortion, land grabbing, narcotics and murders,” the US Treasury said in a statement.

Earlier last year, after protests by the civil society and anger on the social media in Pakistan, the Supreme Court had taken a suo motu and ordered Anwar’s arrest. He was arrested in March 2018. After spending more than three months, an anti-terrorism court granted him bail, which led to his release.

Notwithstanding its acts of omission and commission, the US sometimes, very aptly, pinpoints the flaws that we usually wish away as hegemonic interruptions.

Let’s take a couple of similar precedents from our neighbour India. Both countries are post-colonial states. On Tuesday, the US Commission on Religious Freedom sought sanctions against Indian Home Minister, Amit Shah, and other principal leadership if the controversial Citizenship Amendment Bill was passed by the parliament, reported Scroll.in.

The bill remains passed to this day.

Likewise, Mr Narendra Modi was barred from the US in 2005 for failing to stop anti-Muslim riots. The State Department invoked a law, passed in 1998, which made foreign officials responsible for “severe violations of religious freedom” ineligible for visas. Being twice elected the PM of India, Modi’s case raises the question of what makes our crimes or criminals stand away from those in the rest of the civilised world?

Let’s come back to Pakistan where our former president, Mr Zardari, when asked about Rao Anwar and his whereabouts (he was in the hiding), proudly said, “Maira bacha hai woh, bahadur bacha (He is my child, a brave child.”

Meanwhile, father of Naqeebullah Mehsud died this week; fighting cancer and cases to bring his son’s “killer” to the justice. The great politician, Mr Zardari, was granted bail on health purposes.

By the way, it is not specific to Zardari Sahib. Almost all parties and leaders have got these “bahadur bachas (brave children),” who run their shadow politics and businesses.

As this development occurred, the respectable lawyers of Pakistan were busy vandalising the Punjab Institute of Cardiology where four patients have died to date.

In another ironical show, the sick and impoverished people of this country are on roads; demanding to send their leaders to costly foreign hospitals from the prisons.

And the sad facet of this tragedy is that not everyone corrupt is in the prisons. The choice is arbitrary, and only the civilians are to be incarcerated. Here lies the difference between participatory democracy and a spectators’ democracy.

Dostoevsky had intended “Crime and Punishment” to be a first-person narrative and a confessional account. Ultimately, he had switched to a third-person omniscient voice that plunged the reader right into the protagonist’s tormented psyche. It was great indeed but some literary critics claimed that Dostoevsky had (or had to) alter the last part of the “Crime and Punishment,” perhaps owing to the similar compulsions that we feel in Pakistan!

The writer is a freelancer