The odd world of Rehman Malik

It’s never surprising when the man with a bag full of vibrantly coloured ties, rigid curly hair and beady eyes, the one and only Interior Minister Rehman Malik pops up a surprise for the nation.
This time he has hinted that foreign elements could be involved in the Karachi violence on the basis of the Israel-made weapons recovered from people arrested in the city.
He said that the Israel-made weapons recovered from over 200 arrested people prove that foreign hands are responsible for the unrest in Karachi.
The next day when it was realised that the minister had made a fool of himself by uttering such rubbish, the spokesman of the Interior Ministry clarified that the electronic and print media misinterpreted Mr Malik’s statement and he had not made any statement alleging involvement of any country, including Israel, in what’s happening in Karachi.
The ministry’s spokesman may be trying to clean up the mess made by the minister, but the fact is that Mr Malik is still hopelessly trying to pin the blame for the situation in Karachi on some outside force while pursuing the long-dead policy of reconciliation.
But then again, Mr Malik should be given a break. At least he only dragged in Israel into the matter, similar to how the mullah brigade keeps holding the US responsible for all ills of the country. Otherwise, with the vivid sense of imagination that Mr Malik possesses and his keen interest in science fiction (he described the PNS Mehran attackers as characters from Star Wars), he could have said that aliens from outer space are killing people in Karachi and also collecting bhattas and taking over lands in the city.
The truth is that the Karachi predicament is local in nature. The people responsible for the killings and violence are not Israelis, Indians or Americans. They are its own. Mr Malik’s futile efforts to deceive the public won’t make a difference. The residents of Karachi know better than that. Mr Malik’s remarks are only as amusing as his ties.

Motto of Pakistan Rangers (Sindh) ‘Respect All’… that’s not what the camera captured

There is a page on the Pakistan Army’s official website www.pakistanarmy.gov.pk containing general information about the Pakistan Rangers (Sindh).

It mostly highlights the ‘glorious achievements’ of the paramilitary force including remaining “continuously involved in combating terrorism and ensuring law and order by providing intimate support to Sindh police in Karachi and interior Sindh”; “by the grace of God Almighty and dedication of all ranks, winning the confidence and appreciation of the citizens” and, nevertheless, being “now regarded as a premier law enforcement agency, with high credibility and trust”.

There is also a subtitle on the page “Code of Conduct” under which it is written, “Troops of Pakistan Rangers (Sindh), being intimately involved in multifaceted border and internal security duties, have a lot of responsibility and moral obligation to ensure that their performance remains above board and well within the jurisdiction of the law. To make them better understand their role, a Code of Conduct has been clearly defined which reads, Crackdown for Criminals and Terrorists, Patronage and Protection for the Peace Loving Citizens with an Absolutely Impartial Approach Along With Courteous and Polite Attitude Combined with the Motto, Respect All.”

Apparently, the Rangers personnel, who gunned down an unarmed teenager at a park in the Boat Basin area, never read this Code of Conduct or perhaps didn’t quite understand what it means.

It was yet another incident in which “the Custodians of the Mehran Valley”, tasked with assisting the police restore law and order in Karachi and also given more powers under the Anti-Terrorism Act for this purpose, have crossed the line. They have been found involved in at least four other extrajudicial murders in recent times.

The difference this time around was the footage being flashed repeatedly on all local TV channels showing the daring “jawans” of the Pakistan Rangers firing at a youth begging for his life.

If it weren’t for this footage, there would have been no other evidence to contradict the Pakistan Rangers’ version that the 19-year-old was a bandit gunned down in an encounter.

The SHO of the Boat Basin police station was unwilling to file an FIR against the accused Rangers personnel and the state-run hospital handed over the body of the teenager to his heirs without conducting a postmortem, which would have revealed that the young man was shot from a point-blank range.

Perhaps in a rush of adrenaline, the Rangers personnel paid no attention to the cameraman capturing the entire event or were simply too arrogant to care; a mistake they later would have regretted as it helped bring the truth into the open.

Otherwise, this case would have ended up like the closed file of a protester, who was allegedly shot dead by paramilitary force in the Chakra Goth area of the city last month while he was participating in a demonstration against power load shedding and water hydrants.

The SHO of the area had given a clean chit to the Pakistan Rangers claiming that the protester had not died of a bullet shot by the law enforcement agencies. The other participants of the demonstration, most of them women, say that they were brutally roughed up by the Rangers personnel.

Even if it is assumed that the youth murdered at the Boat Basin park was actually mugging people along with his aides, as claimed by the Pakistan Rangers as well as Interior Minister Rehman Malik, the members of the paramilitary force had no right to kill an unarmed person. The special powers granted to the Pakistan Rangers (Sindh) allow them to arrest people involved in violent activities and keep them in custody for 90 days. This chilling display of callousness is certainly not among those special powers.

So the big question that arises is: Why are the members of this law enforcement agency, which is supposed to protect the citizens of Karachi, resorting to such actions. In the grisly footage of the cold-blooded murder at the park, one can notice the Rangers personnel’s abhorrence for the unfortunate soul crying for mercy in front of them and the remorselessness with which one of them shot him and the others watched him bleed to death. He was a stranger to them and even if he was caught involved in any wrongdoing, he could have been nothing more than a deviant youth.

Were those men venting their frustration on the kid? The Pakistan Rangers (Sindh) are constantly forced to succumb to political pressure when they act against criminals in Karachi and that’s why their current campaign in the city has been a failure, denting their morale.

On numerous occasions, they have to set free criminals they arrest following phone calls from people to whom they cannot say no. Probably this is driving them to their wits’ end and as a result, we see these frustrated law enforcers in a trigger-happy mode, devoid of compassion and eager to eliminate criminals – big or small - in fake encounters   believing that if they arrest them, they are likely to get off the hook afterwards.

The other reason for the violent behaviour of the Rangers personnel could be that a force primarily trained for border patrol might be incapable of handling the challenges of an urban environment for a long period.

In the past, the Pakistan Rangers have been used in limited numbers and in short spells to deal with the violent convulsions in Karachi. It could be that the presence of too many personnel this time has complicated the situation and their current stay has extended more than it should be.

Pakistan’s best funnyman, the interior minister, has announced yet another committee to probe the Boat Basin incident. He has formed so many of such futile committees, it might be some kind of a record and he could be in contention for a spot in the Guinness Book of Records.

It seems as if the man keeps these committees in his pockets and sells them for a living. If only they could produce any worthwhile results. The one for the youth’s murder is unlikely to be any different.

The electronic media deserves credit for bringing into the public and higher authorities’ knowledge what actually occurred at the Boat Basin park. However, the reporters of the TV channels went a step too far by proclaiming that the youth was absolutely innocent. Yes, his murder was a great injustice, but whether he was involved in any criminal activity or not, that’s for the courts to decide on the basis of evidence, not the media.

The power of a single mosquito

If you wondered why the eccentric Bollywood actor Nana Patekar in one of his movies frantically kept on repeating that a single mosquito can turn a man into a eunuch, you should go through the news about six men or probably four holding off about 1,500 soldiers for 16 hours in Karachi.
Six terrorists (if somebody actually wants to take Interior Minister Rehman Malik’s word for it, otherwise according to contradictory reports, there were only four), earlier speculated to be between 10 and 15, grabbed their arms and explosives, sneaked into the naval base, PNS Mehran, destroyed two precious US-made P-3C Orion aircraft and killed 10 security personnel. Later, the security forces were at their wits’ end by the time they managed to take down the handful of terrorists.
If the manner in which our armed forces’ “preparedness to meet any challenge” was exposed wasn’t painful enough, the interior minister and navy chief really rubbed salt into wounds. The former likened the attackers to "Star Wars characters" on the basis of their appearance, and as for the latter, it’s mind-boggling as to why he chose to speak if he only had to admire the attackers’ skills, training and efficiency.
The October 2009 attack on the military headquarters in Rawalpindi should have compelled the army to review many of its flawed strategies and set its priorities right.
But it didn’t. And now it cannot afford to waste time on reassessing as to who poses the biggest threat to the country. The answer is right there in front of it in its ugly form.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan has claimed responsibility for the naval base attack, which is apparently part of the expected backlash in the aftermath of the US raid in which al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed.
A closer look at the terrorists’ modus operandi in the PNS Mehran attack shows that it shares many similarities with the army headquarters siege in Pindi, the March 2009 attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team and the Mumbai attacks in November 2008. In almost all these cases, there is a group of heavily armed men who are experts in guerilla tactics. They infiltrate into the targeted area and keeping the security forces engaged for hours.
These methods are unlike the ones employed by the tribal areas’ Taliban, who usually blow themselves up at crowded spots or ram an explosive-laden vehicle into a building, like what they did to the Crime Investigation Department office in Karachi.
The tactics used by terrorists in the naval base attack and the similar ones before it are hallmarks of the jihadists prepared for Kashmir. For years, they have managed to get the better of Indian armed forces and it’s no wonder why they are so well-trained.
When there was a shift in Pakistan’s Kashmir policy during former president Pervez Musharraf’s tenure and insurgency was reduced, these jihadists, rendered useless in the new scenario, turned against their own country’s military and joined hands with the Taliban in the tribal areas. They call themselves the Punjabi Taliban, as that is where most of them hail from. Though a sub-group of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, they have their own methods of going about their business.
The PNS Mehran and the army headquarters sieges were both suicide missions. They attackers knew that there were no chances of survival. The only aim was to humiliate the armed forces by taking control of their bases… just long enough to dent their morale. And this is what must be giving the shivers to the West… a nuclear armed country, where less than half a dozen men are capable of taking on the defences of its “invincible army”.

A dharna of another kind

The Don Juan of Pakistan now turned right-wing politician, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan put up a good show in Karachi.

His dharna (sit-in) at the Native Jetty Bridge was aimed at choking off NATO supplies headed for Afghanistan in order to protest drone attacks in the tribal areas, even if it meant inflicting losses on the country’s own industries.

Whether or not Mr Khan actually gave any sort of trouble to NATO, he certainly managed to attract a large crowd, in fact bigger than many would have thought he would. The two days of his dharna were perhaps the hottest days of the summer in the city so far. Drenched in sweat, hundreds toiled in the harsh, relentless heat to make Mr Khan’s dharna a success.

So the PTI chief suddenly becomes the crowd-puller. And understandably so… he had the mullah brigade backing him up. And not to forget the buzz about “Immi” of the Pakistan cricket’s golden days recently becoming the new pawn in the hands of our always meddling spy agencies.

Nevertheless, the event was a unique spectacle as people, who are worlds apart, were found side by side for a common cause.

Most of Mr Khan’s followers are the younger lot. So there were a number of young men and women at the dharna acting as cheerleaders for the PTI chief’s mission as if they were at a concert… actually it did turn out be a concert with Ali Azmat and Strings entertaining the participants of the dharna – not a bad thing actually if the youth develop a sense of political awareness (not sure if that was happening in this case) and also make such gatherings more fun than they usually are.

But at the same time, the Sunni Tehreek and Jamaat-e-Islami mullahs were also present there. In fact, even when their leaders spewed their bigoted, spiteful mullah rants, Mr Khan’s jumping jacks continued to party.

So let’s thank Mr Khan for providing us with a sight that we don’t get to see everyday. Two very different lots of the frenzied kind together - one group brainwashed into believing that religion tells you to hate others and the other with minds so cluttered with unnecessary junk that clarity of thought and the ability to reason and reach the right conclusion is gone.

What is in a date?... nothing and everything

Another May 12 has gone by and the lawyers’ community observed it as a black day to remember that fateful day when hell was unleashed in the city of Karachi. Similar to what they show in the Old Western flicks, law and order did not exist in the city on the May 12 of 2007. Bodies of dead people were scattered around in various areas of the metropolitan and its law enforcers were cowed by armed thugs, who called the shots that day.

May 12 might just be another day on the calendar. A date keeps coming back year after year simply because of a system that humans have devised to keep track of the passage of time. The May 12 of 2007 is gone and it will never come back. But it is important to mark this day and keep remembering what happened back then - just like January 27 is observed as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day so that everyone can remember or learn about the Nazis’ brutality and to commemorate the victims of their callousness.

A great deal of blood was spilled on the streets of Karachi on that day four years back when a dictator swung his fist around while murderers continued their onslaught. It is essential that we remember that a great wrong was done - at least until justice is served and those who caused the bloodshed that day pay for what they did.

Many of us tend to forget very quickly. A few years pass and all is forgiven. But it’s not the same for the families of the May 12 victims. They must be living with a pain that will last a lifetime. Had they not lost their loved ones, their future could have been quite different now – in most cases a better one. We must not forget May 12, if not for the sake of those who were mercilessly murdered so that some oppressors could bask in their power and glory, then for their unfortunate families at least.

True martyrdom

The city of Karachi has witnessed martyrdom of the true kind unlike the associating of the term “martyr” with people who are better off dead than alive. This actual martyrdom came in the form of the murder of two Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum activists, Haji Abu Bakar and Abdul Ghani – two men, who made the ultimate sacrifice to protect the precious mangroves on our coasts from the clutches of land grabbers.Their bodies were found at the Shamspir Island in Keamari. They were tortured and murdered. The death of these two men means that the city’s mangroves, on which 135,000 people depend for their livelihood, have lost two life lines. The dual murder has enraged the fisherfolk and they are demanding justice. But apparently, the perpetrators of this crime are too influential for the law enforcers.

Mangroves are inter-tidal forests with great economic and ecological significance. According to various researches, mangroves provide food, fodder and fuel-wood for villages. There are approximately 100,000 people who take a total of 18,000 tonnes of fuel-wood each year from the mangroves. In addition, 3,200 buffaloes and 6,000 camels also consume some 67 million kilogrammes of leaves and 19.5 million kilogrammes of grass. Much of Pakistan's fishing industry relies on the fish found in the mangroves, notably shrimp, which are the principal fisheries export of Pakistan. Of the $100 million that Pakistan earns in fisheries foreign exchange, shrimp accounts for 68 percent. Mangroves are also important for recreation purposes with high potential for eco-tourism. The Indus Delta is an important migratory route for millions of waterfowl that need to feed and breed during the winter months. Some 80 species of birds, such as pelicans, flamingos and herons are found in the Indus Delta mangroves. Mangrove forests also provide protection to the coastal areas from strong winds and ocean currents. Their vegetation also helps in reducing coastline erosion because the roots collect sediments that flow into the sea from the river.

There are certain elements who wish to deprive us of our mangroves. If men like, Haji Abu Bakar and Abdul Ghani continue to die, there will be nobody left to protect them.

True martyrdom

The city of Karachi has witnessed a martyrdom of the true kind unlike the associating of the term “martyr” with people who are better off dead than alive. This actual martyrdom came in the form of the murder of two Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum activists, Haji Abu Bakar and Abdul Ghani – two men, who made the ultimate sacrifice to protect the precious mangroves on our coasts from the clutches of land grabbers.Their bodies were found at the Shamspir Island in Keamari. They were tortured and murdered. The death of these two men means that the city’s mangroves, on which 135,000 people depend for their livelihood, have lost two life lines. The dual murder has enraged the fisherfolk and they are demanding justice. But apparently, the perpetrators of this crime are too influential for the law enforcers.

Mangroves are inter-tidal forests with great economic and ecological significance. According to various researches, mangroves provide food, fodder and fuel-wood for villages. There are approximately 100,000 people who take a total of 18,000 tonnes of fuel-wood each year from the mangroves. In addition, 3,200 buffaloes and 6,000 camels also consume some 67 million kilogrammes of leaves and 19.5 million kilogrammes of grass. Much of Pakistan's fishing industry relies on the fish found in the mangroves, notably shrimp, which are the principal fisheries export of Pakistan. Of the $100 million that Pakistan earns in fisheries foreign exchange, shrimp accounts for 68 percent. Mangroves are also important for recreation purposes with high potential for eco-tourism. The Indus Delta is an important migratory route for millions of waterfowl that need to feed and breed during the winter months. Some 80 species of birds, such as pelicans, flamingos and herons are found in the Indus Delta mangroves. Mangrove forests also provide protection to the coastal areas from strong winds and ocean currents. Their vegetation also helps in reducing coastline erosion because the roots collect sediments that flow into the sea from the river.

There are certain elements who wish to deprive us of our mangroves. If men like, Haji Abu Bakar and Abdul Ghani continue to die, there will be nobody left to protect them.

The errors of their ways

With the good riddance of Osama bin Laden, The Guardian has published the world’s most wanted list as it stand now and guess who makes it to the second slot in that ranking – none other than Dawood Ibrahim, the head of the Mumbai-based, 5,000-member organised crime syndicate D-Company, which has engaged in everything from narcotics and counterfeits to weapon smuggling and contract killing.

He is currently on the wanted list of Interpol for organised crime and counterfeiting. He was ranked fourth on the Forbes' World's Top 10 most dreaded criminals list of 2008.

After the 1993 Mumbai bombings that killed 257 people and wounded 713 - allegedly organised and financed by Ibrahim - he became India's most wanted man.

The US, maintaining that Ibrahim had close links with bin Laden, declared him a “global terrorist” in 2003 and pursued the matter before the United Nations in an attempt to freeze his assets around the world and crack down on his operations. The US government claims that the kingpin of the criminal world shares smuggling routes with al Qaeda and has collaborated with both al-Qaeda and its affiliate, Lashkar-e-Taiba, which allegedly pulled off the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, possibly with Ibrahim's help.

Unfortunately, Pakistan again comes into the limelight when Ibrahim’s issue comes up.

There have been numerous claims that he was, or probably still is, is a ‘guest’ in Pakistan just like bin Laden, protected by appearance-altering plastic surgery and friends in Pakistani intelligence community.

Urban legends in Karachi are that he lives somewhere in the DHA area of the city and many claim to have seen the underworld don.

The fact that Pakistani cricket legend Javed Miandad’s son married Ibrahim’s daughter further fuels suspicions.

Now if these rumours are true, it is yet another example of our intelligence agencies’ never-ending list of blunders. What objectives can they achieve by treading this path of self-destruction, it is anybody’s guess. Perhaps it all comes down to their eternal hatred for India. But in the process, what they are really doing is weakening their own country and tainting its image in the eyes of the world. We can only hope that our spy agencies can see the errors of their ways before it is too late.

An exit from the mess

As expected, Pakistani authorities are now up against the wrath of the global community for - what the latter believes - either hiding the recently slain al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden on their soil for years or being too inept to figure out that the world’s most wanted man was under living under their nose all along.

An anti-Pakistan mood prevails in the US Congress with many American lawmakers believing that the operation in Abbottabad has exposed the treachery of the Pakistani government.

Further complicating the matter is CIA chief Leon Panetta’s statement that Pakistan was not included in the mission to kill bin Laden as US officials feared it could have jeopardised the operation by alerting the targets.

What puzzles the US lawmakers is the fact that the al Qaeda chief was living in a complex close to a major military academy in the city of Abbottabad - where the armed forces have a large share in the property.

There are questions over whether Americans should continue military and economic assistance to a nation, which might be abetting al Qaeda.

Pakistan, caught in the middle of all sorts of crises one can think of due to its own self-destructive policies, is in dire need of US assistance and is denying that it had any information about bin Laden’s whereabouts.

But to make matters worse for itself, it is allowing organisations including Jamaatud Dawa to openly mourn the death of the man, who was responsible for the deaths of so many people - more Muslims than the followers of any other religion perhaps. Jamaatud Dawa is supposed to be a banned outfit, but every now and then, it stages rallies in major cities including Karachi and Lahore, a proof that it enjoys the authorities’ free hand. Newspapers all around the world and websites carrying images of Jamaatud Dawa members shedding tears for bin Laden at a funeral in absentia in Karachi surely won’t help matters for Pakistan.

One ray of light for the country is that the Obama administration hasn’t used harsh words for it yet. In fact, it is saying that Pakistani cooperation is essential for the war on terror in the coming days. Perhaps that might provide Pakistan with an exit from the mess it is currently stuck in, but at the same time, it can expect a much greater amount of “do more” pressure headed its way.