Arshad Pappu. ILLUSTRATION: JAMAL KHURSHID
The family of Arshad Pappu - one of Lyari’s most notorious gangster who was reportedly killed on March 17 - approached the Supreme Court to seek justice.
In their application, they maintained that Uzair Baloch, Baba Ladla and others were involved in Pappu’s murder but the FIR only names unknown people. His family alleged that Pappu’s head was desecrated, his body was cut into pieces and then burnt and the ashes were thrown into nullahs. We could not give him a proper burial and offer his janaza, said the family.
Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, while hearing the Karachi law and order case on Friday, forwarded the application to the Police IG, instructing that the case should be taken seriously. Based on the police’s report, the judges will proceed with the case.
Bringing up the issue of the mutilated bodies of the two Rangers, Justice Jawwad S Khawaja inquired if a case has been registered. “They were your own people, have you arrested anyone for the killings?” he asked the DG Ranger’s counsel, who did not appear to have an answer. Later, his only reply was the case has not been solved.
“We’ve been giving examples and guidelines on how to establish peace but there isn’t any. Now there is news of girls being kidnapped as well,” said Justice Chaudhry. “If the police and Rangers are so efficient, how come eight target killings took place last night?”
In response to the efforts made by the police, Acting Sindh IGP Ghulam Shabbir Shaikh submitted that an operation was carried out last night in Lyari in which 18 criminals were arrested.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 23rd, 2013.
COMMENTS (3)
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Humanity should prevail anyway. Be it of a gangster or a cop, corpses need a dignified treatment. If Pakistanis can support the horrible treatment given to this gangster then they have no right to cry on the decapitation, amputation, being blown to fleshes in the blasts and everything which Taliban do to them.
What about justice for the people killed by Pappu and his gang? If he was a gangster, then he deserves the punishment meted out to him. At least 10 people are killed daily in Karachi, 10 families per day without bread earners, 10 families that will reside in poverty for the rest of their lives living in misery. Wake up Karachi, Wake up people of Karachi ... MAKE THE CITY SAFE.
Karachi in particular, and Pakistan in general, has lost the semblance of what is known in the civilized world as "law and order." For law and order to exist there has to be a written legal code, an established force to enforce the compliance of these codes, a governance structure to supervise this force, and the public's trust and confidence in the governing powers. All these elements are missing in Pakistan and in particular in Karachi. The governing powers have no will to provide law and order to the citizens and residents of Karachi. Historically, when this situation has prevailed in other societies, the public had mobilized itself and risen up to establish a structure to create law and order. Usually this has been in revolutionary circumstances. Or alternatively societies have crumbled and people have been left to fend for themselves, a la Somalia.