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.
[quote comment=”21749″]There you go again. Back to your anti-Pakistan agenda. I will tell you who gives Pakistan a bad name, its people like you who lack patriotism and websites like this.[/quote]
No, people like you are the problem.
“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.” – Mark Twain
A picture is worth a thousand words. In this case a million.
We see a young man stripped waist down. We see clearly the identity of at least seven policemen handliing him and a quiverring cane striking the half naked man.
The issue is: were these policemen ordered by a superior, or a magistrate for their actions or, were they rogues working on their own. In either case, firstly they and their incharge should be immediately stripped of their Uniform and tried(not unusual when stripping/shedding of uniforms is a familiar demand for much higher persona these days in Pakistan’s political environment)for performing an illegal act. Even in the truncated legal system,the police can only arrest and cannot administer arbitrary punishment without authority of a court of law after trial. Lathi charge, teargas throwing and firing etc. has to be done at the instruction of a Magistrate on the spot, IF section 144 is in force, of which there is no indication at this incident.
The active Chief Justice Pakisatn may find it a fit case for his Suo Motu action once he returns from performing Haj.
Last night when I was formatting this post, I thought of removing the face of the young man being beaten or remove the picture altogether. After all, we do not wish to add to the indignity and humiliation already inflicted on him. After much thought, I choose to retain the picture because (a) it had already been published on the front page of Dawn and (b) my sense was that blanking it would only fuel more curiosity and turn the story from one about his humiliation rather than the shameful behavior of the police. To me, at least, the young man comes out looking dignified in adversity and, as the comments till now suggest, the shame is entirely of those who would commit such as act.
I hope this was the right decision and have been having an off-line discussion with reader Sufi on this. I thought it may be worthwhile explaining my thought-process and also seeking reader views.
The picture is shocking but not surprising. There is a video posted on YouTube of a Pakistani policeman hitting repeatedly with his shoe a young boy with his pants around his ankles.
This is not a police issue; this is not a freedom of speech issue; this is a reflection of our society in general. This happens in our homes everyday; it’s how we treat our disobedient children and women. This happens in our schools everyday; this is how teachers humiliate students to make their own lives easier. This happens in our streets everyday; this is how issues are resolved and matters settled. This happens in our workplaces everyday; this is how employers keep their “servants” in line.
This utter disregard for human dignity is what makes the world scoff at us. But don’t tell that to some of the regulars on this blog who regularly maintain that international human rights exist only to keep us in chains.
[quote comment=”21236″]I am pro-musharraf, but this is not acceptable at all. Its against the constitution.
[/quote]
Umm…the way Musharraf came to power is actually UNconstitutional.
Military rule, spineless judiciary, terrorist politicians (MQM)….and we’re surprised?