Think about Tharparkar and the impressions which come to the mind are famine, drought and staggering numbers of deaths of children due to malnutrition and insufficient medical facilities. Famine and drought being nature’s design while child deaths are portrayed as man made through slander and propaganda apparently aimed at the Sindh government and PPPP.
Tharparkar holds the distinction of being the only district whose child mortality rate is under the regular spotlight of both print and broadcast media, as if the rest of Pakistan is ideally dealing with this situation. The only silverline in Thar, or for that matter in whole of Sindh, is the upcoming coal project and the planned electric generation from it. The regular periodicity of these propaganda shows a clear pattern and motivation upon deep analysis when it comes to child mortality in Tharparkar. Each Media house seems to tabulate and record these deaths on a daily basis shows an incomprehensible enchantment with Tharparkar. No one seems to care that Child mortality varies from 70-120 Deaths per 1000 births in all districts of Pakistan.
Take Rajanpur district in Southern Punjab which is ecologically closer to Tharparkar in its backwardness. In Rajanpur 110 deaths per 1000 births were recorded in 2008 as per Government Records. Now at this Ratio, Tharparkar with its population of over a million inhabitants and a population growth of 3 percent reports over 30,000 births every year. Assuming 110 deaths per thousand it computes to 3300 potential deaths per year in Tharparkar. The last count on private channels till recently was reported to be at 586 child deaths in Thar. With this rate the total deaths in the whole of 2018 could go upto 727 deaths.
Thar suggests that child mortality in Tharparkar is half of that reported in Rajanpur, and even less than the National average, yet no one highlights this in their reports. With a ratio of 60 deaths per 1000 births Tharparkar should in fact be showcased as a model district specially when we factor in its obvious backwardness, malnutrition and the harshest living conditions in Pakistan.
As per Unicef, the child mortality rate in Pakistan is about 79 deaths per 1000 births. This focus on Thar points towards a concerted and planned effort in defacing Sindh Government and its health services. Who directly benefits from this is anybody’s guess. Now let’s investigate another scandal and explore how Ghost accounts from across the breadth of the country started sprouting as soon as the PTI Government came into power. The media once again is reporting money being stuffed by ghosts in common man accounts.
The manner and timing of these ghost accounts is alarming, whereas everyone in the country is chirping about it.
It clearly seems that suddenly someone has started depositing billions of Rupees in these ghost accounts only to be recovered by the state after systematically reporting these scandals to Prime Time Media in the shape of Breaking News. The obvious beneficiary of this is the new PTI government which directly earns legitimacy for its claims of black money of corrupt persons floating in the whole country from Sialkot to Karachi. What makes this scandal obvious and murky is its timing.
Everyone knows that regulations in our banking system are capable enough to detect such shady transactions, but still not even a single such case has been reported in the last twenty years or for that matter in Pakistan’s banking history. The question arises why now and why at this scale, it is laughable to say the least.
Thar suggests that child mortality in Tharparkar is half of that reported in Rajanpur, and even less than the National average, yet no one highlights this in their reports. With a ratio of 60 deaths per 1000 births Tharparkar should in fact be showcased as a model district specially when we factor in its obvious backwardness, malnutrition and the harshest living conditions in Pakistan
Hopefully, now Pakistan will see no such ghosts accounts reported as FATF and moreover, the world has linked these accounts to Terrorist financing last week. The ghosts are too sensitive to FATF and the global allegations of terror financing. Besides they have achieved their purpose already.. Window dressing public opinion and national perceptions has never been that easy, it can only happen and be believed in naive poor Pakistan.
The above two scandals draw us to another scandal called Hathora Group when Gen Ziaul Haq’s government spread fear in the common man by propagating that KHAD and KGB agents have been unleashed in Pakistan to kill ordinary Pakistanis by smashing their heads with Hathoras in mid eighties.
This was reportedly done by agents of Russian KGB and Afghan intelligence agency KHAD to deflect attention from ethnic (Punjabi Pathan versus Mohajirs) frictions, and the rising crime rate in Karachi, seven beggars and footpath sleepers were reported dead and no one has been arrested to date. However, the news achieved its purpose.
All this reminds me of a quote which fits Pakistan’s situation very well, “When all you have is a hammer then everything looks like a nail”. Everyone knows who the hammer belongs to, the question that makes us wonder is ‘who is the nail?’, hopefully not us!
The author is an APNS awarded journalist and can be reached at [email protected]
Published in Daily Times, October 25th 2018.