Article

2016-03-03 India-Pakistan

[DAWN] Mumtaz Qadri was a member of the Elite Force of Punjab. The New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
reported he had been "removed from a special police branch several years ago because of his bully boy religious views", and reinducted in 2008, when Shahbaz Sharif
...Pak dynastic politician, brother of PM Nawaz Sharif, chief minister of Punjab...
became the chief minister of Punjab.

Continued from Page 4

This paper carried a report saying "the IG of Special Branch, Mr Nasir Durrani, had released a report last year in which it had been pointed out that Mumtaz Qadri and 10 other coppers had some nexus with religious bully boyz and it was suggested that they should not be deployed on VIP duty."

It was also reported that three days prior to the liquidation, Qadri had organised a ‘religious ceremony’ at home, which according to other police officials quoted in the same report, ought to have flagged him for observation by the Intelligence Bureau and the Special Branch, whose job it is to monitor and vet police officials, especially in sensitive duties.

Recall also that Shahbaz Sharif, who bravely begged the Taliban to spare Punjab
1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots....
from their ferocious bombing campaign around the country, did not attend the funeral of the assassinated governor of the very province of which he was the sitting chief minister.

I don’t rake up these memories to embarrass anyone, although if some embarrassment is felt perhaps it would be a more genuine sign of progress than the execution. My intention is to remind us of something very simple. Over the years, we have whistled casually past all the

milestones that announce the spread of bully boy mindsets in our society. Lal Masjid
...literally the Red Mosque, located in Islamabad and frequented by all sorts of high govt officials. The proprietors, Ghazi Abdul Rasheed and Maulana Abdul Aziz Ghazi, unleashed their Islamic storm troopers on the city, shutting down whorehouses and beating people up who weren't devout enough. The Musharraf govt put an end to the nonsense by besieging the place. Abdul Aziz Ghazi was nabbed while he was trying to escape dressed up like a girl. BBC reported that the corpse count at 173, but other claims, usually hysterical, say there were up to 1000 titzup. Among their number was Abdul Rashid Ghazi. Everyone then said tut-tut and what a nice guy he had been...
was one such milestone. The liquidation of Salmaan Taseer was another. What lessons were learned from these episodes, and where do we see the impact of these lessons?

The last milestone has been the tragedy at Army Public School last year. And now we are being told that we have finally woken up to the threat posed by the spread of violent extremism. Good, but just look at the sights from the funeral to see what we have woken up to.

In local government elections last November several banners erected by PTI candidates carried large pictures of Mumtaz Qadri. When it was pointed out, Naeem ul Haque, the party’s central information secretary, tweeted that "PTI wishes to dissociate completely from certain posters in Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
LB campaign glorifying convicted killers".

Dissociate from certain posters? What about your coalition partners whose head has just led the funeral prayers for one of these "convicted killers"? What is your position on that?

This is the time when all political forces need to say it loud and clear: convicted murderers will receive the punishment the law says they should receive. And while they’re at it, they should also collectively put out a message that the only road forward for Pakistain is an inclusive and a progressive one.

This is also a good moment to point out the folly of using the death penalty as a tool in the fight against terror. Many countries in the world realised decades ago that the death penalty does not work as an instrument with which to fight violent crime. It is even more ineffective in fighting religiously inspired militancy.

Having executed Qadri, the government has taken a step from which there is no turning back. Now it is crucial that the memory of Qadri does not morph into a legend to inspire future generations. That will only happen if Islamabad can find its voice and loudly proclaim what kind of Pakistain it is committed to building. And Rawalpindi visibly buries its history of using religious militancy as a tool in foreign adventures.

In the meantime, we have climbed so far up the pole of denial and indifference that it’s going to be quite a journey climbing down. But climb down we must, unless we want to wake up yet again in a Pakistain where the picture of Quaid-e-Azam has been replaced with that of a garlanded Mumtaz Qadri in government offices across the country.

Posted by Fred 2016-03-03 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11130 views ] Top
File under: Govt of Pakistan

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