Organ racket
THANKS to the sustained efforts of activists and health professionals, the illegal organ transplantation trade has come down greatly in Pakistan after this deplorable practice was criminalised in 2007. However, as reports of a gang busted recently in Rawalpindi show, the racket is still continuing on a smaller scale, as unscrupulous individuals seek to harvest the organs of the poor and the desperate in order to make unholy profits. As reported in this paper, the gang was busted after law enforcers searched a car in the garrison city’s Bahria Town area in which a victim was being transported. Investigations revealed that criminals had harvested the indebted brick kiln worker’s kidney after promising to help him address his financial woes. The man was given an injection and after regaining consciousness, he found he was missing a kidney. The criminals reportedly paid the victim’s brother Rs200,000 for his organ, while the racketeers usually charge ‘beneficiaries’ of these illegal transplants — usually moneyed Arabs — around Rs5m. The procedure had been carried out in a private residence.
The authorities need to remain vigilant to bust more such networks involved in the illegal organ trade. While most of these activities were carried out in Punjab, criminals had shifted their activities to KP and AJK to avoid detection. That is why law enforcement and health authorities of all federating units need to work together to bust the rackets. Monitoring needs to be stepped up, so that crooked doctors and agents involved in this evil trade can be prosecuted. This will need to be prioritised, as in these times of economic misery, malign actors will increasingly prey upon the vulnerable to part with their organs for paltry sums. Unfortunately, cases against perpetrators are not properly pursued, as dishonest doctors have been known to escape the legal dragnet and resume their activities. And while cracking down on the illicit organ trade, ethical transplantation and deceased organ donation must be promoted.
Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2023
Caught at sea
POOR fishermen on both sides of the border are amongst the hardest-hit victims of the decades-old Pakistan-India enmity. The men are hauled up by the respective authorities when they mistakenly stray into the other state’s territory, and end up languishing in jail for years, with their vessels confiscated and their families usually reduced to penury. When the fishermen are finally released their families are naturally overjoyed, as was witnessed recently when 12 of them returned home to Karachi. It was an emotional homecoming when fathers, brothers and sons rejoined their loved ones. Some of the men had been in Indian jails reportedly for over a decade. While in years past there have been reports of cruel treatment meted out to Pakistani fishermen in Indian jails, this time the men said that they had been treated in a more humane fashion.
This cruel cycle of capturing and incarcerating fishermen needs to be abandoned by both states. At times an entire family’s breadwinners — working on the same boat — end up in a foreign jail, and when their seized boats are not returned, the men lose their sources of livelihood and have to start from scratch. These factors only worsen their fragile financial condition. Unfortunately, the bureaucracies on both sides are least interested in the fishermen’s plight, and were it not for the efforts of community activists and civil society, repatriating the men would be even more difficult. There are no markings at sea indicating the maritime boundary, which means that whenever a vessel crosses to the other side, it is captured and the crew incarcerated. Also complicating matters is the bilateral dispute regarding Sir Creek, an area frequented by fisherfolk from both sides. Instead of arresting fishermen and putting them through labyrinthine subcontinental legal systems, Pakistan and India need to evolve a common mechanism so that fisherfolk who stray across the maritime boundary are warned and told to turn back. And in case they are detained, the fishermen need to be repatriated swiftly, instead of having to spend years in prison. According to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea — which both states are party to — arrested crew and vessels need to be promptly released after “posting reasonable bond or other security”. The least both states can do is to honour this commitment to lessen the misery of fishermen.
Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2023
Tainted legacy
TIME heals all wounds; including, it seems, entirely imaginary ones. Imran Khan seems to be mellowing during his extended hiatus from in-person public appearances. He is now in a ‘forgive and forget’ mood, at least as far as the United States of America is concerned.
He no longer sees the Biden administration as an insidious foreign power that conspired with his political opponents to throw him out of office.
“New information has come to light,” the former prime minister sheepishly explained to a Voice of America correspondent in a recent interview. According to this ‘new information’, it wasn’t conniving foreign officials who conspired to have him thrown out, but his own army chief who urged Washington that Mr Khan needed to go.
The PTI chief’s narrative makeover — call it a U-turn if you like — seems to have been prompted by the recent publication of an interview of the now retired Gen Qamar Bajwa, in which the general described Mr Khan as the greatest threat to Pakistan’s interests.
Pakistan was headed for disaster if Mr Khan continued in office, Gen Bajwa was quoted as saying, and this is apparently why he was removed. Those remarks have seemingly incensed Mr Khan enough to turn his guns squarely on the former army chief.
In a Sunday address, Mr Khan asked — and perhaps with good reason — what was accomplished by throwing him out of office when his successors made matters worse with their deplorable handling of the economy.
He also accused Gen Bajwa of exercising sweeping powers in most matters of governance, leaving it to the PTI to take all the blame. While Mr Khan’s new allegations seem desperate and conveniently timed, they do appear to hold a kernel of truth.
Both the PML-N and the PTI have, on record, accused the retired general of political interference and toppling their respective governments. Though the extent of his influence may never become public, it does appear from the general’s own statements that he seems to have taken a keen interest in matters that were well outside his purview.
The results of his extracurricular activities were catastrophic: the country grew increasingly polarised while he played one side and then the other. His critics say it was all for personal gain, even if he insists he was acting in the public interest.
The general also left the armed forces facing a reputational crisis unlike any before. Given the extent of damage wrought to the state and its institutions during Gen Bajwa’s tenure, there must be some kind of reckoning.
The Bajwa doctrine must be reassessed, and its known and lesser-known dimensions audited in depth and brought into the public eye. The fresh garb of ‘neutrality’ no longer seems enough to excuse the latest misadventures of our uniformed leadership.
Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2023