Adil Najam
This is a shocking picture.
I too was shocked to see it right on the top half of the front page of Dawn (29 December, 2006). I was even more shocked to read the details of this incident that took place in Rawalpindi:
Police broke up a protest demonstration organised by family members and relatives of missing persons, badly beating and arresting several of them after they tried to march to the GHQ to present a memorandum to the Vice-Chief of the Army Staff. More than a hundred people, mostly women and children belonging to the families of the disappeared, arrived in groups to the square in front of the Flashman’s Hotel. According to the organisers of the protest, the participants had planned to peacefully march to the GHQ to register their concern over the detention of their loved-ones, who they say, have been in the custody of the army and secret agencies for the last several years.
Eyewitnesses said the trouble began when a heavy contingent of police, led by SP Yasin Farooq, SP Muhammad Azam and DSP Rana Shahid, pushed some of the protesters inside the hotel’s boundary wall, shoving and manhandling them badly. After some time more protesters arrived and started shouting slogans against the police. Those who had been detained inside the hotel also came out to join them. This led to skirmishes between police and the protesters. According to the eyewitnesses, the protest took a turn for the worse when the police stripped a young man, Mohammad bin Masood, the son of missing Masood Janjua. The witnesses said even then the police continued to drag him, finally throwing him into a police van.
The incident enraged other protesters, especially the man’s young sister, who started crying and flagellating herself. The police also shoved aside the father of a missing man and later arrested him. After having failed to march to the GHQ, the protesters blocked the Mall Road for about three hours. Police and protesters fought running battles for some time. Scared by police highhandedness and arrests, a young girl and a small child lost consciousness and fell on the road, the eyewitnesses said.
Unbowed and determined, the protesters refused to leave the place, end the protest and open the road until the arrested men were released. Later, on an assurance from SP Azam that the detained men would be released, the protesters dispersed peacefully. However, the younger brother of detained Mohammad bin Masood told Dawn by telephone that his brother had not been released by the police. The eyewitnesses said that besides an old man and Mohammad bin Masood, several women had been detained and not released till late in the evening.
The report of the incident in The News, adds the following:
Placard-holding women and children held a demonstration close to Flashmans Hotel here. But the police force stopped the procession going beyond Flashmans Hotel. “We planned a ‘freedom walk’ and wanted to hand over a letter to the vice chief of army staff in the General Headquarters (GHQ),� said Amina Masood, whose husband Masood Ahmed Janjua has been missing since July 30, 2005. Masood is among at least 105 persons missing from all over the country during the last five to six years. The SSPs, SHOs and dozens of constables from various police stations of Rawalpindi were deployed at the roadsides and tried their best to disperse the procession that lasted nearly two hours.
A handful of policewomen were also present at the rally and helped their male colleagues once the protesting women tried to walk towards the GHQ. “Do we belong to the same country,� questioned one aggrieved woman from an SHO when she was stopped. “Do we have arms in our hand? Why are you stopping us?� she shouted. The women shouted slogans and demanded the release of their males before Eid-ul-Azha. Some of the women and their children were even crying. In an unfortunate incident that could easily have been avoided by the security personnel a young man, Mohammad bin Masood, son of Masood Ahmed, was dragged into a police van and forcibly driven away from the scene.
The shame here is not on the young man without his shalwar. It is on the police for allowing this to happen. And in some ways it is all our shame.
My first reaction on seeing the picture was that maybe the young man’s shalwar fell off in the scuffle. The News story calls it “unfortunate incident that could easily have been avoided”; Dawn, however, suggests that he was “stripped.” In either case, the indignity inflicted on the young man is reprehensible. Even more reprehensible is that 105 individuals are ‘missing’ without their families having any news of them.
Here at ATP we try to be as fair and even-handed as possible. We have praised the police in a number of posts when it has done well (here and here). We try to highlight what is blatantly wrong (here and here) when we see it. Silly attempts to spread lies is one thing; disappearances are quite another. They do not do anyone any good and cause irreparable harm to the reputation of the country, and to all of us. To those who worry about Pakistan’s image internationally, we have asked before, and we ask again: Who is giving Pakistan a bad name?
But this is not about ‘image.’ This is about the reality of disappearances. If these people have committed crimes, then let them be charged and presented in courts. And if they are not, then the guilt and the crime is not theirs, but of whoever holds them.
POLICE
Police is at no fault. They obey orders passed by higher up’s and they are expected to obey or loose their jobs.
Unless the judiciary is independent which holds police accountable for their actions and the police in turn opens up the Pandora box and names the higher up’s for ordering wrong doings to save their skin…either spill the facts or go behind bars for 30 years…
A lot of facts will come out. The next time when the presidency or PM secretariat issues such orders to the IG, he will think twice before obeying..or even if he does, the foot constable will refuse to obey..
The role of independent judiciary is critical to the functioning of a democratic nation. Justice must be independent, swift and blind. Blind meaning, it does not see colour, race, religion, wealth or power…
It’s so easy to blame an illiterate, two cent worth cop whose brain cells never developed beyond the age of 5 years old or a retarded 15 year old (max) and making them the escape goats is hilarious. If Pakistani police men ever lived in a developed western country or somehow managed to immigrate there, each one of them will end up in a mental clinic and probably get segregated from society. Blaming them solves nothing..
Police is at no fault. They obey orders passed by higher up’s and they are expected to obey or loose their jobs.
Unless the judiciary is independent which holds police accountable for their actions and the police in turn opens up the Pandora box and names the higher up’s for ordering wrong doings to save their skin…either spill the facts or go behind bars for 30 years…
A lot of facts will come out. The next time when the presidency or PM secretariat issues such orders to the IG, he will think twice before obeying..or even if he does, the foot constable will refuse to obey..
The role of independent judiciary is critical to the functioning of a democratic nation. Justice must be independent, swift and blind. Blind meaning, it does not see colour, race, religion, wealth or power…
It’s so easy to blame an illiterate, two cent worth cop whose brain cells never developed beyond the age of 5 years old or a retarded 15 year old (max) and making them the escape goats is hilarious. If Pakistani police men ever lived in a developed western country or somehow managed to immigrate there, each one of them will end up in a mental clinic and probably get segregated from society. Blaming them solves nothing..
[...] The shamefulness is obvious in these pictures themselves; just as it was when a young man’s shalwar was taken off as he protested ‘disappearances’ some months ago. It is distressing because it demonstrates the sanctity of our most important institutions - the judiciary and the media - is now under threat. It is dangerous because if one keeps slipping down this road then it is not merely the future of this government but that of the entire country that will be at stake. [...]
[...] The move has shocked many, but signs of its coming can now be identified in hindsight. Mr. Chaudhry had served as teh Chief Justice since 2005 and, on occasion, had taken steps that had irked the power structure in Pakistan. According to a Khaleej Times report, for example: Last June, the Supreme Court rejected a government move to sell 75 percent of state-owned Pakistan Steel Mills to a Saudi-Russian-Pakistani consortium for 21.7 billion rupees ($362 million). Mill workers claimed it was greatly undervalued. Also, Chaudhry has heard a landmark case brought by relatives of dozens of people believed taken into secret custody by Pakistani intelligence agencies. The chief justice has pressed the government to provide information on the detainees whereabouts. Talat Masood, a political analyst, said the removal of Chaudhry demonstrated the power of the military and suggested that Musharraf’s government wanted to have a “pliable judiciary� ahead of parliamentary elections expected later this year. Musharraf, who took power in a bloodless coup in 1999, is widely expected to seek another five-year term as president from parliament this fall. [...]
The question is what can we do now? You can see the faces of the police officers involved in this shameless act. Example is needed to be set here so that no such incident is repeated again. We should protest but in an effective way. It is necessary to put pressure on govt to get these police officers dismissed immediately. Because if we don’t punish the opressors they get the message that they can strip people in the streets and still get away with it. We should not let them get away otherwise this thing will continue.
Pakistan is heaven for all people practicing power, whether its clerical power or presendential power and biggest mistake everyone of us is doing, we are doing injustice to ourselves.
Does anyone have an update on this. Has the young man been released?
Abu Ghreib, Pakistan police style. A blot.