CLAREMONT, CA, US: This is with reference to Ejaz Haider’s article of February 10, titled “Dirty hands”. “I have dirty hands right up to the elbows. Do you think you can govern innocently?” Maybe not. But should it become the norm?
Of course, it should not be the norm. Yet, can the state help it? Corruption should not be the norm, suicide attacks should not be the norm, assassinations of governors should not be the norm, energy shortages should not be the norm, high treason, civil-military tensions, and absence of political consensus on any level, the laughable effectiveness of the police, sectarian violence, kidnappings, religious intolerance, the irresponsibility of the media — none of these things should be the norm and yet, lo and behold, they are.
Some estimates claim 700 terrorists, but let’s say we reduce the number to 500, on the side of caution. Five hundred alleged terrorists have been released from custody in the Swat and Dir regions alone, just because there was no one who could testify against them and because the police could not — or decided not to — investigate these cases.
It is quite likely that most of these people will not only go back to their terrorist ways, but will go back to their comrades with funny stories about how the state could do nothing to them. This will, in turn, embolden would-be terrorists to join the cause of their recently-released brothers.
Nothing positive is the norm in our country. The norm is, by any standard, deplorable. We live in a state of emergency, in drastic times, which need drastic measures.
Jehangir Chaudhry
Published in The Express Tribune, February 14th, 2012.
