These elements were allies of the military dictator
LAHORE: Political and security analysts have been blaming the Sindh Police for being politicised, failing to perform their basic duty of maintaining law and unable to prosecute criminals.
The unfortunate, bitter reality is that by 1996, the police, under the leadership of Naseerullah Babar, had successfully clamped down on criminals, kidnappers, target killers and extortionists. Operation Blue Fox, led by the Sindh Police and Pakistan Rangers planned by the Federal Investigation Agency and the Intelligence Bureau, was launched in 1992 by then prime minister Nawaz Sharif and pursued by prime minister Benazir Bhutto in 1993, until its logical conclusion in 1994. This operation was carried out by a responsible civilian government with no links to criminals and it successfully cleaned up Karachi with the joint cooperation of GHQ.
Fast forward to General (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s tenure, when 600 of these police officers were systematically murdered by target killers at the behest of those who had been targets of the operation initiated by Naseerullah Babar. These elements were allies of the military dictator. Vacancies in the police were offered to criminals and political activists. The criminal economy became a billion-dollar industry with target killers based in South Africa, Canada and Thailand, with links to RAW, entering and exiting the country without any documentation, with money transferred to foreign safe havens. After the National Reconciliation Ordinance, negotiated between General (retd) Musharraf and the PPP, this criminal economy gained a further lease of life with over 8,000 of its members getting a clean chit for the heinous crimes they committed.
The coalition government that ruled Sindh from 2009 onwards tolerated criminals and another 200 police officers were eliminated by target killers for performing their constitutional duties. Police morale and professionalism became victims of the criminal economy, destroying Sindh. Unless those responsible for the cold-blooded murders of police officers, traders, journalists like Wali Babar, the Baldia Factory massacre and May 12 are given exemplary punishments, crime will continue to haunt Sindh and the rest of Pakistan. Recruitment in the police must be cleansed of political nominees and vacancies filled strictly through merit. The solution to Sindh’s lawlessness is not subjecting it to military rule, but to good governance through merit-based appointments and accountability with no compromises on rule of law, whatever the political cost.
Malik Tariq Ali
Published in The Express Tribune, August 8th, 2016.
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