The day to howl questions over ‘reality show’

What stopped the government to address the plethora of frightening questions related to Islamabad drama?

When not in the government, our political parties keep deliriously talking about sovereignty of an elected parliament with PML-N always sounding the loudest amongst them. Yet the interior minister of the third Nawaz government, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, was not present in the national assembly when it met the morning after a five-hour long reality show that people all across Pakistan had endured on their television screens until late Thursday night.

Not one person from the government benches even cared to explain as to why an otherwise diligent and hands-on pretending Nisar was in Lahore for the past many hours. Even if he could not make it to the assembly for a solid reason, what stopped the government from volunteering a statement read by any minister to address the plethora of frightening questions that each resident of Islamabad is failing to find calming answers to since Thursday.

A desperado from Hafizabad had suddenly landed in the middle of high-end Blue area of Islamabad. With two guns of prohibited bore, he had passed through at least two pickets that the “model police” of Islamabad maintain to protect the capital of an atomic power from loony and lethal intrusions. While sitting in a stolen car with his wife and two kids, the visibly insane Sikandar kept the police and ratings-driven anchors engaged in stating his terms for surrender.

He hardly surprised a person by demanding the complete enforcement of Islam and “effective measures to ensure the protection of Muslim women (why not men as well?) from infidels and their immoral practices”. Demanding so, the same retard felt no shame in negotiating through his wife who willfully acted like a messenger with the poise and gait of an accomplished actor.

On so many occasions, the live cameras clearly demarcated and defined the space that should have been enough for a sharpshooter to paralyze Sikandar with a rubber or real bullet. No one moved. It rather became frighteningly obvious that the Islamabad Police had no special unit, specifically trained to overpower loonies on the loose, forget the highly trained and motivated gangs of zealots.

While the police seemed helplessly busy in buying time, a reckless gang of celebrity anchors desperately struggled to reach him through cell phones. Let me also reveal that the number in use of the loony was passed on to a pre-selected group of anchors and news managers of various 24/7 channels by Sikandar’s father-in-law, who has worked as stinger for various Urdu publications. If you haven’t found out yet, let me add that the negotiator-wife of the loony has also been a student of journalism at a University in Bahawalpur. The whole family, in short, was fully equipped and trained to spin stories for spreading ‘the message.’

Most in our ratings-driven media desperately preferred to build a sob story about a situation that should jolt the helpless residents of a metropolis. They invited guests in their studios to justify the maddening behavior of persons gone berserk with overload of the reformist zeal. The utter incompetence of Islamabad police and mind-numbing lack of the will to act was rather justified in the name of protecting two innocent kids that the loony father was callously abusing as hostages.

If “our representatives” really cared to restore writ of the state in our country where the law enforcers are recklessly abandoning their duty, Friday was the day to howl questions and to force the government to wake up. The lackluster and clueless opposition has not done its homework, though. People from their benches were simply seen vying to steal the Speaker’s attention to score points and spin stories that reporters sitting in the gallery could instantly flash via news tickers on 24/7 screens.

The fast-spreading appearances of religiosity in Pakistan have also begun helping our incompetent governments to get away with many sins of omission and commission. No wonder, the call for Juma prayer bailed the government out. The house was adjourned until Monday evening and during the three-day break, we may see many more ‘Sikandars’ surfacing in various towns and cities of Pakistan to furnish stuff that television networks all across the world desperately seek to mount revenue-generating reality shows. Sikandar and the absurd drama that he could stage in the middle of a bustling avenue with total collaboration of his family and the support furnished by the sheer incompetency of Islamabad Police would soon be history. Abandoned by the state, we will continue to keep adjusting ourselves to fast growing chaos all around us.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 17^th, 2013.