Travel curbs enforced in time

It is premature to interpret the enforcement of travel curbs against senior police officer Rao Anwar as the beginning of an end to the culture of impunity that prevails in our society. For that to happen, much has to be done at several different levels. On Tuesday, Anwar was sent back from Benazir Bhutto International Airport by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on the orders of the Supreme Court. Anwar, who is in the eye of a legal maelstrom following the controversial killing of a Waziristan-born youth, was trying to board a UAE-bound plane at the time. Another cause for concern was that Anwar had on his person a valid residence permit for that country until October 2018. This in itself constitutes a violation of the laws of the land. As a government official, he is not entitled to such a facility.

Anwar’s presence at the airport as a passenger clearly irked the immigration staff. More so because the senior police official in question is supposed to appear before a Supreme Court bench along with the Sindh police chief and the province’s advocate general on January 27. Yet surprisingly Anwar was able to produce a letter from a top bureaucrat in Sindh granting him leave of absence for a week — implying he had no intention to appear in the court on that date. Since the authorities made no attempt to arrest him, Anwar is free to pursue another less-known escape route where border controls are lax. A policeman who has gained notoriety over the years for his expertise in extrajudicial killings euphemistically called ‘encounters’ is hardly expected to stay put or in a reachable place. Otherwise there are just too many ways to disappear from sight and avoid court hearings. The long arm of the law needs to get longer and more firm. 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 25^th, 2018.

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