KIDNAPPING FOR RANSOM- PAKISTANI STATE MACHINERY INVOLVED

I was amazed to read a news story titled " The kidnapping of young Briton Sahil Saeed has focused the international spotlight on one of Pakistan's more murky secrets". In fact, the world and international media in particular know well about the kidnapping for ransom in Pakistan. It has become one of the most profitable business in Pakistan. Last year thousands of documented cases of kidnapping have been reported in Pakistan with Punjab topping the list with 11 000 cases of abductions. In most of the abductions cases the missing persons simply disappear. No body knows, how these people disappear and where they can be located. Supreme Court of Pakistan is processing the cases of thousands of missing persons but the Agencies (military & ISI) are reluctant to co-operate with the Court, rather hurdles are created.

Of course, small criminal gangs are also involved in this heinous crime, but we always miss the root-cause of the problem and the main culprits. It is been proved beyond any doubt that ISI has been using this method of Kidnapping for Ransom to finance its so-called Jihad in Afghanistan against former Soviet Union and later after 9 11 to finance the Talibans in Pakistan and Afghanistan waging war against US and Allied forces. Besides kidnapping, other methods of collection of black money were looting banks, donations through different jihadi organisations, receiving bribes from corrupt bureaucrats and politicians and most important of all the drug business. Former Prime Minister Nawaz sharif rightly pointed to this heinous crime of Pakistan Army and ISI in his interview with Kamran Khan published in Washington Post.

Until or Unless this rogue Pak Army is not made accountable for such crimes, it will continue. Mr. Ansar Abbasi, in his Column, coinciding with the Women Day of March 08, has made the Police a scapegoat in the above mentioned case along with other similar cases, but he missed the point, who actually is responsible for this state of the affairs? Of course, police is directly involved in some crimes but in most cases police is forced by Pak Army and ISI to release or not to arrest the culprits, as the criminals are on the pay-rolls of these two powerful institutions.

To another assertion of Mr. Ansar Abbasi that the Islamic laws introduced in Saudi Arabia, UAE and Iran have been instrumental in reducing such crimes in these countries. I do not think the inhuman laws of medieval ages could be introduced in this modern age by lashing people, cutting their hands and cutting their throats in public. These laws or practices are not something exemplary to present them as good example to the world. I would like to pose a simple question as to how many innocent people have been lashed, amputated and killed through these draconian laws of medieval times?

Of course there is crime in European countries like UK, France and Germany, but these are not POLICE STATES like Saudi Arabia, UAE and Iran. Their Criminal Justice System is based on respect for Human Rights and dignity of a person. It is here that the real system of the fear of Certainty of Punishment is practiced. What kind of justice system we want to offer to the world in which people are lashed, amputated and killed publicly. Is it viable to introduce such barbaric and medieval system in the modern civilised world and label it as Islamic? Muslim are already suffering from bad image and the naive suggestions presented by Mr. Abbasi can further tarnish our image as Muslims. Mr. Abbasi may be nostalgic about the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the medieval draconian wahabist Islamic Ideology, but to term it a true Islam is not fair.

Mr. Abbasi termed the police training, capacity building, increase in the pays of Police and judges as futile exercise.I think only a person out of mind can say such things. He is just harping the tune of Pakistan Military and ISI system of justice where innocent civilians are abducted, tortured and killed extra-judicially, who wrap up the constitution of Pakistan and Judiciary under the force of gun. Crimes, lawlessness, injustice, chaos, corruption and intolerance are rampant in societies where old machiavellian concept of Power is Rights is the norm.

PASHTUNS-IN SEARCH OF AN IDENTITY

Despite the fact that most of the terrorists involved in the horrendous and mindbogling 9/11 terrorist attacks were of Arab Origin, the developments afterwords have been a tragic testimony to the fact that it was the Pashtun nation which suffered most. They were between two fires since Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan. Pashtun culture, national identity, way of life, customs and traditions were under attack by bearded-Turbaned-illiterate Talibans and the US-Trained Clean-shaved Pakistani Generals with Talibans mind-set, heading the military establishment in Pakistan. Both these two enemies of the the Pashtun race are responsible for the destruction of the true traditions of Pashtuns. These two mercenaries are bent upon killing, torturing and humiliating Pashtuns not only in Afghanistan but now in the whole of Pakistan.

Both are receiving money from different sources including Saudi Arabia to work as proxy to impose the strict Wahabist ideology on the followers of Bacha Khan the epitome of non-violence and peace. In the land of the Pak, pashtun nation has been subjected to humiliating and un-dignified treatment from Peshawar to Karachi by the civil and military apparatus. Today, Pashtuns are under siege by Talibans, who are bombing, killing, abducting, and torturing innocent Pashtuns. while on the other hand the Pakistani police and military is traumatising them with the same tactics by daily searches, arrests without warrants, in-human treatment in police and secret agencies custody, extra-judicial killings, abductions without judicial process, and torture on the pretex of being Talibans. It is on record now that the Attorney General of Pakistan has told the Supreme court of Pakistan on the disappeared persons case headed by Justice Javed Iqbal that the military and civilian intelligence agencies are not co-operating with the civilian government for the release of those disappeared persons. Which means that there is no rule of law and supremacy of the constitution in Pakistan and the secret intelligence agencies are abducting innocent people with impunity. According to reports by different Human Rights Organisations about 10000 civilian have disappeared in Pakistan since 2001. It is also a well known fact that it was due to the taking up of the missing persons case by the SUPREME COURT of Pakistan that the military controlled secret agencies like ISI and MI started a concerted campaign to force President Musharaf to impose second Martial Law against his own government just to remove the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudry and his collegues in the Supreme Court. Pak military is providing all financial, logistical assitance, training and sanctuaries to Talibans to be used as fodder in the war on terror against US and Allied forces in Afghanistan, while in Pakistan the same military is involved in the killing and genocide of the innocent pashtuns in FATA and Pakhtunkhwa. One cannot grasp the depth of the hypocrisy of the Pakistani military establishment, bent upon playing double game both with USA and Pashtun Nation.

Pashtuns are harassed daily by conducting each and every mile police and military searches in Pakhtunkhwa. They do not discriminate between women, old ones and patients who need urgent medical treatment. If some educated Pashtun raise a voice against this discrimination and harassment he is made an example for others by publicly beating, by arresting and torturing on the pretext of so-called war on terror. There are hundreds of complains filed by professors, students and doctors who have been meted out this humiliating treatment. In Punjab and particularly in Sindh Pashtuns are in very horrible conditions. They are threatened by the gangsters of Muttahida Qaumi Movement and other Sindhi nationalist organisations to leave Sindh and Karachi. Their businesses and transport is not safe. Their shops and buses are burnt in Karachi and looted and burnt in Interior Sindh by Criminal gangsters with the assistance of Police. They are not issued Domicile and Identity Cards. Written instructions are displayed at the offices of the NADRA in Karachi for Pashtuns not to come for the Domicile and ID Cards. Pashtun students are denied admissions in different colleges and universities of Pakistan. In a concerted secret policy, Pashtuns are marginalised and prohibited to enter civil service in other parts of Pakistan.