State has finally come to reap expected rich harvest of intentionally allowing hundreds of private militias to exist
KARACHI: Battlefield: Badin. Warring armies: A landlord’s private militia led by an ex-home minister vs. the nuclear Islamic Republic of Pakistan led by the SSP Badin.
Formations and their battle readiness: the ex-home minister-led private militia consists of an inner circle of about 20 heavily-armed loyal personal guards. The second line of defence has been recently created and consists of about 50 Kalashnikov-bearing men and women of a minority community. The third line of defence consists of a few thousand on-call volunteers who can assemble at short notice, organise protests, block roads and get shops closed. The private militia has no shortage of weapons, licensed or otherwise — courtesy its commander’s last stint as the provincial home minister. The militia is in a highly-agitated, angry and trigger-happy mental state and is desperate to assert its power.
The Islamic Republic is represented by an SSP, who has some 300 men at his disposal. His force is under-trained, under-motivated and would prefer a softer option in a situation of armed conflict. His other main handicap is that on paper he reports to a few gentlemen in the police hierarchy but in practice he reports to half a dozen self-serving politicians. He has been trained not to take on-the-spot independent decisions but to comply with the wishes of his political patrons.
Moral of the story: the state has finally come to reap the expected rich harvest of intentionally allowing hundreds of private militias to exist (in violation of Article 256 of the Constitution) and by converting its police force from an organ of the state to a servant of the politicians.
Way forward: Pakistan can dream of becoming a civilised country only if it dismantles all private militias and de-weaponises all segments of society. The police force needs to be restructured, reformed and re-trained on professional lines and removed from the clutches of politicians. There can be no peace or progress unless the state gets rid of all urban and rural private militias.
Naeem Sadiq
Published in The Express Tribune, May 8th, 2015.
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