Balochistan’s lack of governance
1) The provincial government failed to establish the writ of law and lost the authority to govern the province in accordance with the Constitution, while the federal government failed to take effective measures against internal disturbances apart from deploying the paramilitary force; 2) The federation failed to meet its obligation to exercise all constitutional options to ensure that fundamental rights of the people are fully protected, including the obligation to ensure that political decisions taken by the government remained within the parameters of the Constitution; 3) Both provincial and federal governments were bound by the obligation to control internal disturbances in the province as early as possible while remaining within the limits set by Article 148(3) of the Constitution.
Section 3 of the said Article says: It shall be the duty of the Federation to protect every Province against external aggression and internal disturbances and to ensure that the Government of every Province is carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution.
The Court, over the course of hearing cases, has come across serious violations by the provincial and federal authorities of the obligation to function within the law. It observed that “the home secretary, inspector general of the Balochistan Police, director general of the Intelligence Bureau, director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence and the ministries of defence and interior admitted deterioration in the law and order situation in Balochistan without giving evidence of any effective action against the situation thus arisen”.
The Court has indicted the virtual collapse of the provincial authority saying that “although there is a democratically-elected government headed by the chief minister and comprising [of] 50 ministers and five advisers, no one had come up with a solution”. The Court did not mention that virtually everyone in the provincial assembly was a minister and that the chief minister of the province was found more in Islamabad than in Quetta, visiting restaurants during the day and racing his high-powered motorbike on the streets with his young friends.
The nation is aware that Frontier Corps personnel, the police and Levies were killed brutally. The Court pinpointed the ‘facilitation’ provided by officials of various state institutions to terrorists through such means as giving out permits for non-duty paid vehicles and illegal weapons to individuals considered wrongly by them of being capable of providing inside information on the killers.
There was no end to resorting to illegal measures on the part of state agencies against elements they considered to be acting against the security of Pakistan: forcibly taking people away after which their mutilated dead bodies were found by the wayside as a kind of response to terrorism. Conscious of the activity of military agencies against perceived terrorist elements, the Court ordered that “all cases of targeted killings, abduction for ransom and dumping of mutilated bodies be transferred to the Crime Investigation Department of Balochistan”.
It is no longer concealed from anyone that the Supreme Court is finding it difficult to make headway in its inquiry to demystify disappearance cases. While it patiently pursues the issue, public opinion is building up against the state for using illegal means to curb what the ‘agencies’ wish to dump on an international conspiracy to undo Pakistan through assistance to terrorist-separatist elements in the province. Time has come to purge the state agencies and institutions executing the ‘foreign hand’-based programme of action. The acts of criminality of a handful of terrorists who enjoy no public and political support can be dealt with, provided the state reverts to constitutional governance.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 14th, 2012.
COMMENTS (1)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
You have no problem when same is done in FATA. Terrorism is terrorism, BLA and sympathizers are same as TTP both should be crushed.