Murdering the truth

The murder of Dr Syed Baqir Shah, the police surgeon who contradicted the official version of the Kharotabad killings, raises a disturbing thought — that it is, perhaps, too much of a coincidence that months after he gave evidence before a judicial inquiry implicating members of the law-enforcement agencies, he dies a violent death. This isn’t the first time Shah was targeted after he gave testimony to the commission investigating the Kharotabad killings that the five foreigners involved in the tragedy had been killed by security forces and not after detonating their own hand grenade, as had been originally claimed. Just the day after he had given his testimony he was picked up and severely beaten, an act that was blamed on a drunken policeman. A far more likely scenario is that the first attack was meant to intimidate Shah into changing his testimony. When that didn’t happen he was ruthlessly shot dead as a warning to all would-be whistleblowers in the country.

Obviously, as one of the prime suspects, the police cannot be entrusted to carry out the investigation into Shah’s murder. Instead, it would be appropriate to expand the remit of the Kharotabad commission to also pinpoint Shah’s killers. The Quetta police chief claimed that Shah’s murder was an “act of terrorism”, but in this case the terrorists may well be part of the state. Only an independent enquiry, free of the state’s influence, can provide a definitive answer to that question.

Meanwhile, the commission also needs to ensure that protection is provided to all the other witnesses whose testimony may not have been to the pleasing of the police and Frontier Constabulary. Among them is the taxi driver who was being used by the five foreigners. The driver testified that the foreigners were all unarmed and fearful of being targeted by security personnel. Since the local police cannot be trusted to provide for his safety, the driver needs to be placed under a federal witness protection programme. The same needs to be done for the cameraman who took a video of the shooting and has since claimed that he has been receiving death threats. Shah’s brutal murder is a very grim reminder of the dangers one faces in Pakistan for speaking the truth.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 1^st, 2012.