After the release of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) report regarding the Baldia Town incident that killed over 250 people in a private garment factory in 2012, the MQM has, once again, come under attack. Although every attribute of the report — its legality, reliability, veracity and its timing — can be questioned, yet the impetuous Pakistani media for its inherent bias against the Karachi based political party, has delivered its verdict in favour of it as if it were the word of God.
Leaving no ambiguity, the JIT finds the MQM responsible for extortion, coercion and blackmailing. It also incriminates the party for violence leading to the bloodbath in Baldia Town upon its failure to collect money from the factory owner, which may or may not be true. However, there exists another side of the picture, the aspect that most people either out of fear and shame or their partiality and prejudice do not bring up often. It unravels the incompetency, lack of training, absence of legal insight and poor investigative skills of our law enforcing agencies. At best, without presenting any concrete evidence, the so-called ‘fact finding mission’ must be regarded as hearsay or a confession of a suspect under the threat of torture.
Besides being poor in quality, what makes the investigation untrustworthier is the manner through which it was released to the media. According to news updates, it seems that a government organisation handed over the report to a specific media group that started campaigning against the MQM based on the confessions of a former member of the party, a confession that would have been thrown out of the window as trash by any court since it was obtained by setting aside all rules and regulations and by ignoring legal requirements. As a matter of fact, if police or rangers had captured me in a raid instead of Mr Qureshi (the suspect) and treated me like one of their ‘usual guests’ I would have confessed to crimes I have never committed or even imagined within five minutes. Not only me, anyone without proper training to endure pain and torture would do the same, a fact known to everyone. There is overwhelming evidence in literature that supports my argument on how captives, to avoid physical discomfort, tell their investigators anything and everything the authorities want to hear. At the time, when every inch of their body burns with pain, they exaggerate, confabulate, concoct and many times deliberately mislead, having no problem in admitting to be the president of Pakistan, a serial killer or a trained terrorist.
To keep the record straight, let me state my position first. In no way am I trying to exonerate the MQM from the crime nor do I intend to give them a free pass against such activities, let alone the massacre in the garment factory. If anyone has committed a crime, be it a political party or its workers, they should be treated according to the law of the land, without rendering any favours or keeping any grudge. Notwithstanding that, they should not be bullied through coercion, propaganda and under-the-table handshakes.
Looking at the content of the investigation, the media should have demanded concrete evidence against the accused, like it happens in the rest of the world, instead of promoting petty and nonsensical quarrels between political parties in talk shows. However, every channel has refused to somehow dig out that issue. The question is: why did they behave so irresponsibly? Does more independence of media mean more irresponsibility? I think, first, in an environment of cutthroat competition, sensationalism can pay big bucks. So, calling a political worker a terrorist would sound much more attractive to the audience then asking a legal expert about the regulatory procedures that were ignored during the investigation.
This has happened because of pure laziness, lack of intellectual curiosity and professional incompetency of television anchors and their production teams. To ask intelligent questions, one has to be intelligent, well read and well articulate himself, some basic characteristics that most of our anchors lack. Remember the ‘breakthrough’ invention of the car that ran on water and its creator, ‘Engineer’ Waqar, who reversed all the laws of thermodynamics and was greeted as a saviour on primetime television?
The people of Pakistan blindly believe in every report against the MQM, India, Israel and, most of the time, the US as part of their national duty irrespective of the absence of evidence. Contrary to this, when it comes to admitting the atrocities of the Taliban, even when they accept responsibility and even when there exists irrefutable evidence against them, Pakistanis struggle hard to deny them. Somehow, they always find a foreign hand to blame. How convenient, is it not? Many political leaders (you know who I am talking about), who come out blazing at the MQM, do not even call out the name Taliban after a terrorist attack as the responsible party to avoid backlash, a great strategy and display of ‘real’ courage.
Lastly, we count on the patriotism of our security institutions as the solution to all our problems, without realising that patriotism does not always translate into competence. Many times overzealous patriotism can in fact turn out to be counterproductive, especially if it encroaches on the domain of other organisations. We have ventured out on that route in the past, only to find, after years, that the country travels backwards in time when the military and para-military forces, instead of focusing on border security and attempts to uncover financial irregularities, maintain law and order or formulate political alliances. Karachi’s situation reflects the same problem. The presence of rangers in the city for such a long time of course does not help solve its lawlessness; it hampers it. It is a part of the problem, not a part of the solution anymore.
The writer is a US-based freelance columnist. He tweets at @KaamranHashmi and can be reached at [email protected]