Adil Najam
Punjab Member of Provincial Assembly (MPA) Shumaila Rana, of the PML-N, has been arrested by the Punjab police for allegedly stealing two credit cards and then going on a shopping spree with them. The PML-N leadership has said that the law will take its course. But this adds one more shocking story to what is already a litany of sorts.
The details are bizarre enough not to need an explanation. According to the Daily Times:
Ghalib Market police on Sunday registered a case against a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) female MPA for allegedly stealing two credit cards from a woman’s wallet and buying jewelery and clothes worth Rs 80,000 on those cards, the police said. The FIR No 551/09 was registered against the MPA under Section 379 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), on the complaint of Muqeet Salam, brother-in-law of Zaira Malik of Canal Bank.
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Owais Mughal
This signboard is painted on a wall at the Sukhan Police Station, Karachi.
This is what the folks at the Thanna believe are (or should be) the qualities of the Police Force in Pakistan.
The spelling mistakes (e.g., Courages) can be merely a case of Pinglish (we ourselves are not immune to these). But I do wonder why the word “Obedient” is there. Obedient to whom? And is that really a quality you want in your police force?
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Nadeem ul Haque
Is our democracy working?
The writers of our constitution merely copied Westminster paying little heed to the need for developing further checks and balances to allow the democratic institutions to evolve and take root. Remember England has a system that is fully in motion having evolved over centuries.
We, on the other hand, have to start a new system.
As any mechanical engineer will be able to tell our learned controllers of thought, the laws of motion tell us that starting up a system is harder than maintaining the momentum of a system that is already running. We have to jump start the democratic system and then try to warm up the engine so that it will maintain its momentum.
As our friendly mechanical engineer will tell us, this requires considerable power and careful monitoring. You cannot just turn the ignition of election once and have a perfectly working system. Other safeguards and perhaps continuous and rapid ignition thrusts may be required. For example, might not quick, annual elections for, say ten years at least, enforce more responsible behavior from the politicians.
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