Outrage
Sir,
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) wants to express grave concern over a mob beating to death a Christian couple at a brick kiln where they worked, in Kot Radha Kishan. The couple’s bodies were later burnt in the kiln.
HRCP is shocked and saddened beyond words by the callous murder of the couple and their unborn child. An HRCP team that went to the site of the tragic killing did not come across any evidence of desecration of the Holy Quran.
It appears that the murdered man, Shehzad, had a dispute over wages, or recovery of advance that the kiln owner had extended to two families of Muslim labourers who had escaped. The kiln owners had asked Shehzad to repay the amount extended to the escaped families because he had introduced them to the owners.
It appears that Shehzad and Shama, his wife, had been severely beaten up at the kiln and locked up in a room. Some witnesses say that Shehzad had died in the beating. Shortly afterwards, when word of alleged desecration was spread to nearby villages and announcements made through mosque loudspeakers, a mob of hundreds headed towards the kiln.
Meanwhile, four policemen at a nearby post visited the kiln and demanded that the couple should be handed over to them otherwise they would be killed by the mob that was headed that way. However, the HRCP team learned that the kiln owners instructed their employees not to hand the couple over and the policemen were also beaten up.
HRCP is still trying to get the police version and the DPO had said that the police were investigating the matter and around 40 persons had been arrested including the kiln owner.
We do not want to influence the investigation in any manner. However, HRCP must voice its outrage at the tragic killing and state that the chances of the couple getting any benefit of doubt diminished when they were accused of desecrating the Holy Quran. The religious belief of the victims also apparently did not work in their favour. HRCP earnestly hopes that this fact would not be lost on the authorities and would persuade them to reflect on their obligation to protect all citizens.
The inability of the police to rescue the couple despite reaching the site is stark evidence of the state’s vanishing writ. The individuals, whether at the kiln or in nearby villages, who instigated violence against the victims, and those who prevented their rescue must be brought to justice. The exploitation of kiln workers is an essential part of the context of the tragic killing and this incident should lead to accelerated efforts to ensure that slavery-like practices that continue despite a promise in the constitution cease without further delay.
Zohra Yusuf,
Lahore.
Welfare, selfare
Sir,
This is with reference to the news appearing in a section of the local press about the charity of an Indian boss who opened his treasure chest to lavish a huge sum of over $800 on his 1,200 employees. We can only dream of such a goodwill gesture by a Pakistani industrial giant and I am sure that such a miracle can never occur in our country.
We are proud citizens of the land of the pure and claim to be the followers of a religion that places great emphasis on charity and welfare, but nothing is more important to us than the accumulation of wealth for which we can even sacrifice our honor, dignity and respect. Our industrial giants “suffer a big loss” every fiscal year and the loss is so great that they add another huge industrial unit to their existing empires. When our multibillionaires are suffering such heavy losses, how can they think of their employees who have made it possible for our industrial giants to multiply their wealth?
Not only Pakistan’s business class but a very large section of people working in the national or local private organizations do not pay taxes. They draw hefty wages, their children get the best educational facilities, they possess property worth millions of rupees, they travel abroad as a routine, and fulfill the holy duty of Haj every year. It is not a difficult task for our tax department to apprehend them and ask them how they justify such lifestyles when they don’t pay taxes.
As the saying goes, where there is a will there is a way. The government must have a firm will and all tax thieves will automatically come into the tax net.
Aamir Aqil,
Lahore.
Business of government
Sir,
Reports about the much-talked-about performance audit of the federal cabinet that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had promised in the elections and his speeches thereafter, has finally started after over 18 months in office and mounting public pressure.
While the choice of politicians to serve as ministers, educated or otherwise, is the discretion of an elected prime minister, he also bears responsibility for their failure or success. Appointing advisors with no specialized professional qualifications, skills or experience in the relevant field is either misuse of power or poor judgment, especially in ministries that already have a federal minister and/or a state minister.
There is no dearth of qualified engineers, doctors, scientists, economists, educationist, journalists, and marketing or banking wizards in Pakistan. Many of these professionals have won international acclaim, yet in this unfortunate country, those who wield power consider appointments where policy decisions of significance are taken involving state funds very casually. Pakistan today tops all negative lists by international auditing organizations in the fields of health, education, poverty, social deprivation, crimes against women, food adulteration, corruption and economic indicators.
Pakistan has highest rate of Breast Cancer in Asia, has been declared as Polio epidemic country, with travel restrictions, and has a Hepatitis and liver infection rate highest in world, yet the government seems oblivious to these problems. There are too many contractors in the PML-N government who seem to be more interested in large projects costing billions of dollars, but there is a dearth of funds when it comes to spending a few crores on health and education. Adulteration in food and use of excessive hormones in Poultry and Milk industry, along-with failure of the state to enforce strict regulatory controls, pose a threat to lives of citizens, to which our elected government seems to be oblivious because of conflict of interest.
Tariq Ali,
Lahore.
Arab fall
Sir,
While discussing the various threats facing Muslims at large, including terrorism in form of the ISIS, the Saudi Gazette editor Khaled al Maeena, who happened to be in Pakistan covering the Afghan war since the mujahedin era, raises very pertinent questions in his recently published and reproduced article “Is there light at the end of the tunnel for the Arab world??” Though the title addresses the Arab world, the danger looms large for Pakistan too.
Khaled al Maeena who speaks fluent Urdu, Pashto and Persian, which he learned during his frontline journalistic career, says today we are left with many questions that need to be addressed with transparency: “Is there a well-defined strategy to move us forward in this shifting unsteady global order? Do we have the statesmen capable of implementing societal reconstruction that can satisfy the needs and aspirations of the Arab people? Can we come up with better plans to stop terrorism which is an existential threat to our societies? Can the majority of Arabs who desire progress implement a middle path that is crucial to a prosperous future?”
He says the Arab Spring, which promised salvation for the people, failed to deliver. The total political and social paralysis ushered in extremist organizations like “Daish” or the so-called Islamic State. He puts the blame on the Arab world that cannot absolve itself of blame for the current impasse, nor can it deny its responsibility for the social ills that contributed to the sectarian divide. However, he holds the United States accountable for the present tragedy. “The invasion of Iraq and the dismantling of all its institutions created a lethal vacuum and tore apart the fabric of Iraqi society. A poorly formulated American Middle East foreign policy tilting toward the Zionist state has contributed to the rage and bloodshed in the region.”
Given his experience and close observation, Khaled’s fears need to be taken seriously. It is a forewarning and steps need to be taken since the Middle East has been chosen for perpetual war by the weapons manufacturers and their proxies “like Bushes, Blairs and Obamas”, as laments Waheed Hussain. Take Iraq for instance, he says. “The support for the Shias and the Kurds, the momentary allies of the West, created a Sunni backlash and the ISIS was born. The US is back in Iraq. Once the IS is bombed out, the US will start wooing the Sunnis. There will soon be a Shia backlash. The cycle will continue. In the US where the Republicans and the Democrats do not see eye to eye on anything, they are unanimous in sending troops to the Middle East. The WW2 lasted seven years overall. Afghanistan has been at war for about 30 years and so is Iraq. Once you seek help from the West, you are in for a long haul. “You cannot have Uncle Sam and your dignity both.”
Arabs will always be controlled, in Syed Wajahat’s words, as long as they are dependent on wealth for their existence. He suggests all of the wealth should be brought together to invest in all of the Muslim and impoverished countries with the purpose of improving the quality of life rather than spending on manufactured material from the Industrialized nations. Industrialized nations have no interest in improving the quality of life outside their own borders. Talking of the remedy and immediate solution, Wajahat advises that higher standard of living elsewhere will only reduce their profit margins. They need cheap labour which the impoverished nations provide it to. “Create more institutions of learning, along with more bicycle factories. Stop the use of gadgets and fossil fueled transportation. Create energy from natural processes like wind, oceans, sun, rivers, people and animals.”
Only a strong diplomacy full of political wisdom and statesman’s acumen can avert the dangers that threaten us.
Marya Mufty,
Lahore.
Bad politics
Sir,
One fails to understand why Imran Khan is continuously dragging the ISI, and now the pure military-specific apolitical MI, into controversy.
Earlier, he had been speaking about the ‘umpire’, which the masses believed to be the army. Now, when the ISI is accused of running a political wing that had made the IJI, and Imran Khan has been amongst the critics of its role in the 1980s, what good does he expect from its representatives in the election probe?
This way he is probably giving a message to the general public that the ISI and the MI are behind him. Imran Khan is either a bad politician or is being wrongly advised. He must be asked why and at whose behest he is doing this. One is sure this time too, neither the ISI nor the MI will want have anything to do with him.
FZ Khan,
Islamabad.
Turkish model
Sir,
If Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif wants Pakistan’s economy to develop and adopt Turkey or China as role models, than he must understand that all this was possible after they had developed their human resource and employed best in fields of science, technology and economics to head various state owned enterprises. Nepotism, conflict of interest and cronyism dictating the choice of men to head state institutions in Pakistan are the biggest impediment to progress.
China has taken decades, lead by men like Mao and Chou en Lai to become the economic giant that it is today. Those who have visited China in the 1970s and 1980s would remember that there was no semblance of luxury, no imported goods, and no extravagance, unlike Pakistan, where while more than half the population lives below the poverty line, our public servants live like royalty at state expense –which many in developed West would never dare to emulate because of fear of censure and accountability.
Therefore the best we can do is follow the Turkish model. For starters, compare the academic professional qualifications, experience and integrity of the senior executives of Turk Hava Yollari, their national airline, with those put at the at helm in PIA by Musharraf, Asif Zardari and now Nawaz Sharif. Or compare the qualifications of their advisors on economy, planning commission, science, water & power, health, education, highways, or railways with the individuals who do the same jobs in Turkey. It is not that Turkey is a country free from corruption, or a country that has had decades of democratic governance. It is a nation where democracy and institutions have developed only recently. Yet they have a far better monetary and fiscal discipline regulated by qualified economists, not commercial bankers, and an independent auditor-general.
Turkey is a Muslim majority country relatively free of sectarian or ethnic violence because political parties, the establishment and the media refrain from exploiting religion. Turkey has progressed because even military dictators that preceded democratically elected government stressed the development of human resource. In Turkey, the business community is forced to adhere to ethics, through strict regulatory controls, although their foreign investments are not subjected to similar discipline.
Ali Malik,
Lahore.
Captaan’s swan song
I’m ending this ‘dharna’ I’ve had enough
Cause sitting in the cold is getting rather tough,
The Ganja won’t resign, he’s called my bluff,
And my uniformed backers aren’t tough enough!
I say stupid things coz’ I speak off the cuff,
So don’t you take seriously my idiotic guff
My Youthias like me, love it crude and rough,
So why bother doing any complex stuff?
My plans to snatch power have gone up in a puff
So I am now going home in an almighty huff,
Don’t blame the songwriter if you are left feeling gruff
Told you months ago this ‘Inqilab’ was pure fluff!
Nooruddin Ahmed,
Aylesbury, UK.