Brutal people
OUR inner demons are at their loudest as bodies of women, the poor and minorities become battlefields of choice. The frequency of brutalities is worryingly high as is the number of victims falling to mob savagery. The latest chilling episode occurred last week in Hyderabad: a rumour of alleged desecration of the Holy Quran kindled bloodlust, leaving a teenager dead, his cousin and four constables injured, torched motorcycles and a vandalised police van. But such rage goes beyond religious sentiment. Last October, two telecommunication employees were lynched over whispers of child abduction in Karachi and scores have met the same fate for ‘attempted’ theft or road rage attacks. Certainly, this desire for instant justice stems from absence of faith in the justice system and economic distress. Besides, it has government approval; a fortnight ago, an amended bill for public hangings of rapists was passed by a Senate committee.
What is it about us that has legitimised brutality? Consider the fervour for capital punishment. Perhaps, knee-jerk responses from politicians leave little hope for the polity to understand that harsh punishments are not deterrents but catalysts for the brutalisation of society. Moreover, empathy and patience have run short, so vigilantism has found space in daily life. In the network of state muscle, faith, and violence, the blame is laid at the police’s door, that too when the intensity of mob justice is directly proportionate to the government’s neglect. Officialdom has failed to take responsibility; what it does instead is put matters in the police’s hands. The force is overwhelmed and ill equipped to accost miscreants and confront mobs, as was seen at a TLP sit-in. Their sloppy training, poor income, broken vans and archaic equipment render them toothless. Finally, no incident can be seen in isolation, or the link between law enforcers and civilians would reach an intractable stage, and make the onus of complicity inescapable for the state.
Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2023
Delay in projects
AS the old adage ‘there’s many a slip twixt cup and lip’ goes, the much-delayed rail track project — Main Line-1 — stretching from Peshawar to Karachi has again hit a snag. A day after it was reported that Pakistan and China were expected to formally announce and sign an addendum to the revised ML-1 framework agreement during the third Belt and Road Initiative Forum in Beijing this week, Pakistan’s finance ministry has sought to water down expectations of the commencement of work on the rehabilitation and replacement of the 1,726km-long worn-out railway line anytime soon. An official told the media that the project remains subject to IMF approval and the finance ministry’s ability to provide sovereign guarantees for a $6.67bn loan from China, even though the scheme’s cost has been cut by 32pc from the previous estimate of $9.85bn. Under the rules dictated by the lender, the government cannot issue sovereign guarantees beyond 2pc of GDP in a year. The ML-1 loan, even after the downward cost adjustment, is roughly around this limit. The ML-1 project is critical for Pakistan and its economy but has faced multiple delays due to cost escalations, Covid-19, internal political instability, disagreement on financing costs, the liquidity crunch, and security concerns regarding Chinese workers since it was first agreed to in 2017. Further delay is likely to again result in cost overruns and force Pakistan to make more compromises on its design, scope and quality.
However, ML-1 is not the only transport project facing delays and cost escalations. The 306km-long Hyderabad-Sukkur Motorway (M-6) — the final, missing link in the chain of motorways from Peshawar to Karachi — is also facing threat of more delays, amid fears of its cost going up hugely as the National Highway Authority considers terminating the contract awarded to a consortium of local and foreign companies on some technical grounds. The delays faced by these projects underline two major issues: first, Pakistan’s dependence on foreign loans for the development of its infrastructure owing to its perpetual fiscal problems; second, the lack of capacity of government departments to properly plan and design a scheme, and draw up and award contracts that protect the public interest rather than the profits of the contractors. Unless we overcome these shortcomings, our infrastructure schemes will continue to face delays and cost overruns.
Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2023
Rogue nation
A RECENT assassination — the latest in a spate of similar killings from Karachi to Kashmir — has turned the spotlight onto what has seemed, for quite a while, to be an organised campaign overseen by a hostile intelligence agency to murder individuals on Pakistani soil.
In the last two months alone, there have been at least four targeted killings that have, either directly or indirectly, been attributed by police to India’s foreign intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing.
In each case, armed assailants tracked, targeted and killed individuals associated in various capacities with different religious outfits.
However, after the most recent incident, in which a former activist of the outlawed Jaish-e-Muhammad was killed, along with two others, in a Daska mosque on Wednesday, police and intelligence agencies were quicker to react. Within 24 hours of the incident, they claimed to have busted a network involved in carrying out a vendetta for a ‘rogue nation’.
Even if the Punjab police chief, who made the announcement of the arrests, desisted from taking names, it did not take much imagination to conclude that it was India his finger was pointing to.
Indian media have reported that the slain man, Mohammad Shahid Latif, was suspected by New Delhi of having facilitated the attack on an Indian Air Force base in Pathankot in 2016.
However, there seems to be little evidence to substantiate this allegation, and no link was ever made public tying Latif to the Pathankot incident.
Indeed, the murders of Latif and the others before him would seem, on the face of it, to be part of an international campaign that also saw the high-profile killing of Sikh nationalist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, Canada, in June this year. The Canadian government has said it has evidence of Indian involvement in the murder; and now Pakistan is claiming the same.
It would seem as if New Delhi wants anyone whom it suspects has played a role in any one of the nationalist movements active within the territories under its control killed. But India cannot go around murdering people in other countries with impunity. There must be severe consequences imposed on it.
It is also pertinent to ask our own authorities how they could let so many individuals be murdered on Pakistani soil before a network apparently being run by an enemy power was finally busted.
Pre-empting such attacks is a core task for counter-intelligence officials responsible for the nation’s security, and as such, it is their responsibility to ensure that Pakistan’s enemies do not use its soil to carry out vendetta killings.
Nothing can be more embarrassing for them than the enemy managing to infiltrate the country while they are busy dealing with domestic issues they legally and technically have no business being involved in.
Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2023