Ruling elite, weapons and militancy

KARACHI: Less than 24 hours after taking oath as Member of the Sindh Assembly, a delinquent and despicable MPA decided to celebrate Independence Day by ruthlessly beating an ordinary citizen over a minor traffic issue in Karachi. Two factors came together to give this entitled public representative the incentive for his obnoxious behaviour.

First the realisation that he had now joined the league of Pakistan’s lawless ruling elite and secondly, that he was escorted by his armed goons who would facilitate any barbarity or illegality that he decides to embark upon.

For over a decade, “Citizens Against Weapons”, an initiative to curb weapon violence, has highlighted the deep relationship between Pakistan’s ruling elite, weapons and militancy. It is clearly not a task to discern a correlation between the three as a cause for violence across the country.

To curb the prevailing violent culture among the ruling cadre, the new government must implement the following actions:

1. Ban all weapons possessed by civilians and those illegally owned by the government office-bearers, regardless of the bore of the weapon or the status of the citizen and introduce weapon surrender and buy-back programme; b. Revoke all weapon licences issued so far to any individual; c. Declare a complete ban on possession, carrying, display, sale or purchase of weapons; d. Withdraw all police protection given to influential people in Pakistan so that they learn to behave like ordinary citizens.

The procedure for securing licence and possessing weapons must then be started from the scratch where licences are then issued on the reasons put forward and not on the basis of one’s public standing as a government official or a dignitary.

Asad Kizilbash , Naeem Sadiq, Rumana Husain

Published in The Express Tribune, August 21^st, 2018.

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