The Express Tribune Editorial 22 August 2019

Pakistan to move ICJ

In the face of provocations from India, Pakistan is exercising utmost restraint and prudence. Pakistan is, however, doing everything possible to help the oppressed Kashmiri brethren against the ever-increasing brutalities of the Indian occupation forces. After taking the long-standing Kashmir dispute to the UN Security Council the first time since 1965, Pakistan has decided to take the issue to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Pakistan’s case would be focused on human rights violations and genocide of Kashmiri Muslims in India-occupied Kashmir. The move is part of Pakistan’s efforts to highlight the Kashmir issue after the Modi government unilaterally revoked Article 370 of its constitution that gave the occupied state of Jammu and Kashmir limited autonomy.

Since the scrapping of the said article on August 5, India has imposed a clampdown and curfew in the occupied territory. The lockdown and curfew have remained in place now for more than two weeks. Kashmiris have been confined to their homes for so long that now they are facing shortages of food and life-saving medicines. Thousands of Kashmiris have been detained. Indian soldiers are regularly conducting midnight and pre-dawn raids on Kashmiri homes and take away young men to unknown detention centres. According to the international media, many elderly frightened Kashmiri men and women are being seen outside government offices inquiring about the whereabouts of their dear ones. They are getting no answer. Also, there are confirmed reports of RSS goons roaming the streets in IOK. India has been committing human rights violations in IOK since 1989, but the repressive tactics have peaked since August 5. Since 1989, around 100,000 Kashmiri Muslims have been martyred. Several thousand have disappeared. Many young men have lost their eyesight due to the use of pellet guns by occupation forces.

We hope the ICJ will take notice of the grave human rights violations in IOK. It will hopefully nudge the international community to help stop atrocities in IOK. Cries for help are echoing from the occupied territory. India says Kashmir is its part, but Kashmiris say they are not part of India.

Overworked cops

The police force in Pakistan is commonly accused of being inefficient, ill-mannered, corrupt and even criminal, without scant consideration of the force being highly overworked and hugely understaffed. As if the police should have no business with the work-life balance debate, unusually long and irregular work hours form a normal duty schedule for cops. While policemen, in general, have to put in 12 hours a day – unheard of in any other profession – most of them, especially those serving as constables, have their duty timings stretched further, and that too on a routine basis. There are even instances of policemen working round the clock, like in cases of emergencies that our country is never short of.

It goes without saying that such a taxing work schedule does affect policemen’s physical health, their mental state, and morale, besides causing many behavioural issues among them. Because of the long and uncertain duty hours, family relationships are always hard for policemen to handle. Overworked personnel cannot be expected to put in their best. It is, therefore, nearly impossible for them to deliver efficient policing. Just for a mention, private security guards are also sailing in the same boat.

Realising the difficulties to policemen due to long duty hours and the resulting cost that comes in the shape of bad policing, the Lahore city police chief had, a few months back, introduced an eight-hour police duty in the provincial capital of Punjab. Unfortunately though, the commendable move – which may well turn out to be a stepping stone towards police reforms – has yet to be acted upon in a proper manner, mainly for want of manpower. According to experts, the current police strength needs to be multiplied three times so as to have the rare concept materialised fully.
Anyway, the Lahore police chief’s initiative should be appreciated – and replicated wherever and however possible. That’s the least we can do for our cops who have no stipulated duty schedules and are ever on call.

Regulating energy sector

In this age of deregulation, we are mulling the opposite – in case of our power and gas sectors. The argument is that these sectors must be independent in regulation matters so as to try and strike a balance between the government, stakeholders and consumers. Maintaining a balance is critical. This takes on further significance in countries like ours where the infrastructure is not that developed and the pool of stakeholders, particularly on the production side, is quite small. Also thrown in the mix is the complexity of subsidies and some foreign advice.

With that in view, there has been a suggestion to grant greater autonomy to the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) and the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra), the oil and gas regulators respectively. In a perfect world, these organisations would regulate their respective sectors. But ours is a country whose ranking on corruption indexes suggests that everyone must be looked at with doubt unless proven otherwise. Indeed, the parliament’s Public Accounts Committee has already called for a complete audit of Ogra while suspecting that those who had violated the rules had been let off the hook.

The government has thus decided to set up new appellate tribunals under new electric power legislation to hear those not satisfied with the determination of the regulator and to help avoid unnecessary and long-drawn-out legal proceedings. If this system proves successful, it could be replicated for Ogra as well. Under a democratic system, the ultimate regulator has to be the public – or their elected representatives through parliamentary bodies. While these bodies exist at the levels of the lower and upper houses of parliament, they are only moderately powerful and can merely recommend cases to accountability bodies such as the National Accountability Bureau and the Auditor General of Pakistan. Maybe, this is time these bodies were strengthened and the public was sufficiently empowered.