Criminal politics

We have learned before in our history that the acts of politicians and the acts of criminals in our country are often identical. This was proven once more in Barkhan in Balochistan, where the police raided a private prison run by sitting MPA and former education minister Abdul Rehman Khetran. Two women and three children were found to be among the seven occupants of this jail. What had brought them there or what they suffered in that illegal detention centre, we do not know.

But there are others like it across the country. Most have not been uncovered; many go ignored by authorities. The one in Barkhan came to light only after Khetran handed himself over to the police after a charge of kidnapping was filed against him. His son and eight other people have also been booked. The former minister has a lot of explaining to do. We need to hear not only about the crime he is charged with but also about the prison he appears to have been running. The activities, indeed, need a full investigation in a situation where abduction, extortion and other crimes have added to the lawless landscape of Balochistan. The involvement of influential persons in these deeds certainly adds to the difficulties in controlling them.

The MPA’s party also needs to make its position clear. Khetran belongs to the JUI-F and won on its ticket both in 2008 and in this election. That party has said nothing about his activities or his arrest. We would expect it to react — all the more so given its standing as a religious party, with presumably high moral values. Indeed, in all cases, political parties need to react to the deeds of their members in a firm manner and penalise them whenever something like this takes place so that a precedent can be set and others prevented from committing similar crimes which add to the wilderness into which our country has fallen. The acts of Khetran must not go unexamined and the identities of those helped by him must be uncovered.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 17^th, 2014.

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