Same old dreams

I've learned not to trust people. Diplomats, men with shining armors, ministers of the sovereign and those on their chrome horses, as soon as you see either, run away. If you see them all together, your mother's curse continues to haunt you. Should've been a better son/daughter.

As Ronald Reagan put it "The most terrifying words in the English Language are: I am from the Government and I am here to help."

You want to know who really rules over you? Try and see those who you cannot criticise. Those who can't stand criticism are probably the ones who run the game and call the shots. But now you know who runs the party. The ruler who throws the party and declares himself to be the DJ too.

Speaking about the DJ, the government has recently directed all guest houses to have their guests registered mandatorily on what they call the 'Hotel Eye Software'. This software registers details of visitors. Such as name, date of birth and other personal credentials. It is said that this measure aims at curbing terrorism and illegal activities. By keeping an eye out on the identity of visitors, the government can now, maybe, anticipate who will engage in not so favourable activities.

Here comes unsolicited advice from a man who doesn't know any better. Perpetrators do not stay at guesthouses or hotels. They have safe houses which tend to be off the radar.

That was my one cent. The second cent is, we need Parliament Eye Software too. Where we as citizens keep an eye out on who is attending parliamentary sessions and see who is indulging in illegal activities. I reckon we're all prudent enough to fathom where most illegal activities happen. Yes, you guessed it right! The good old wax museum.

While we're at it, let's also have a Court House Eye Software. After all, the citizens pay taxes, right? They have all the right to know who enters and exits court houses too. Imagine the scope of this 'eye software' and places we can deploy it in.

Now that my views have been laid down and that too quite eloquently, let me clarify my position. The government shouldn't expect to crack down on terrorist activities by surveilling who sleeps where. At most, you'll end up cracking down on bad marriages. Your own house isn't in order (ask the Sunni Ittehad Council, they'll have something to say), why ruin someone else's?

In other news, Zahir Jaffer is being sent to the gallows. I don't know when though. Maybe he'll spend the rest of his life on death row. But, despite such overwhelming evidence, it took more than 4 years for him to be sentenced. Need I say more?

Unpopular opinion but I still think someone needs to get information out of Zahir Jaffer as to why he did what he did. There is no better way of learning homicidal behaviour than to speak with and study the perpetrator. Some MRIs, some CT scans and who knows, we might be able to build a blueprint of intervention programmes moving forward.

There is wisdom with psychopaths and we need to extract that wisdom to ensure we protect our communities and our people in the future. Zahir Jaffer wasn't the first and he is most definitely not the last and for us to learn from our mistakes, we need to treat this man as a subject of a study. Nothing will justify what he did but we might learn about the workings of an Islamabadi psychopath's brain. Islamabadi just makes it sound more pretentious.

What on God green's earth has gone wrong with the justice system in Islamabad? Judicial officers cannot seem to come to one page regarding how to run the system. The other day the paper said some judicial officer conceded to rifts within the system. What about the people who want justice and are not concerned with rifts?

Fun fact, 172,000 people (skilled labour) have already left the country since January 2025.