In the range

In recent times, there have been various occasions on which one feels dishonourably guilty as a citizen of Pakistan. Yet, after viewing the ‘snuff’ film of a Ranger soldier killing a young boy in broad daylight, while his colleagues stood there impotently and vaguely amused, one feels a very profound sense of loathing and disgust. Unfortunately, the mere loss of human life in Pakistan no longer provides the impetus to such undiluted revulsion. It was the manner in which the boy was killed and the pathetic apologies that followed that make it almost intolerable. The crude exhibition of medieval barbarism is being defended by everyone from the interior minister and the director-general of the Rangers to the prime minister.

The interior minister has given a statement in which he ineffectively attempts to dwell upon the criminal antecedents of the brutally murdered boy. The director-general Rangers, Sindh, has expressed his sorrow and regret at the incident, as if that is sufficient. The prime minister has appealed that the military and judiciary should not be maligned, and this incident should be treated as an individual exception. Altaf Hussain has also said that the institution itself should not be held culpable for the murder. The implicit argument in all these feeble defences is that because the perpetrator of the murder was in an odd-coloured, poorly-stitched uniform, rules of decency and humanity are not applicable. This Sirs, is shameful.

It is precisely this irrational, unmerited respect and exceptionalism for the ‘khakis’ (and in this one would include the Rangers as well) which plagues us. The capitulation by the interior minister and the prime minister is a particularly squalid compromise, considering that they claim to be heirs of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a man killed by similar unaccountable viciousness. The couched justification has been advanced that this particular murder is being accorded more attention than the ordinary, daily murder, and hence this is discriminatory at some level. The short answer is that this is not your ordinary murder. The arrogance, impunity and the absolute contempt with which the execution was carried out makes it anomalous. Those who were craven enough to obfuscate and propose ludicrous alternate explanations for the murder of Saleem Shahzad deserve to be called out and asked to rise to the disgraceful challenge of defending this boy’s murder. Had the same incident been perpetrated by a police officer and similarly caught on tape, the reaction would have been very different and the defence milder. For one, the prime minister would not have felt compelled to comment on the matter at all.

The incident symbolises the ingrained disregard of civilian laws and norms, and indeed of civilians themselves, by those in uniform. The solitary possibly positive aspect of this tragedy is its equalisation; it has brought Quetta and Kharotabad to the streets of Karachi. Barring the extraordinarily rare possibility of the concerned Ranger officers being sadistic, psychopathic killers; the only other rational explanation is institutional. The armed forces as an institution are taught to display contempt to ‘bloody civilian rules’ and, as a result, at times to all humanity. They are trained to be belligerent and not to take prisoners. This training renders them singularly unsuitable for the maintenance of law and order of the civilian population. The invitation to the Rangers to take over the reins of Karachi is fundamentally flawed.

The real tragedy of this murder is perhaps yet to come. A sob fest with no consequential high level accountability will be worse than no mention of this incident at all. Ahmad Faraz’s verses from “Peyshawar Qatilon” (Professional Assassins) are incisively appropriate to the concerned Rangers officers. “Peyshawar qatilon tum sipahi nahien, Ab sabhi bezameeron kay sar chahiyain, Ab faqad masla taj-e-shahi nahien.” (Professional assassins, soldiers you are not/Now we need the heads of all hypocrites/This is no longer merely about the throne of power.)

Published in The Express Tribune, June 11^th, 2011.