The "Sarkari” Militant Wings!

A few couple of years ago, when the Supreme Court gave the observation of the militant wings allegedly run by political parties including especially MQM, PPP, ANP, the PPP leader Babar Awan denied this saying,

“PPP does not have any militant wing at all. The PPP`s militant is the police station.”

To tell the truth, what Babar Awan stated was 100% true. This was the first time when such a loud and clear confession was made by the leader from a ruling political party. This is an established fact that whoever comes in the government, whether it is a political party, Army or the caretaker, uses all the state machinery including especially the police in the way they want against their political rivals.

The history of Pakistan is full of the oppressions that various politicians and the parties had to face through the state machineries especially including the Police, ISI, IB, MI, FIA and the NAB. In fact, there would hardly be a single politician or a religious leader in the Pakistani politics who had not become the victim of the political victimization just because of having a difference of opinion with the people in power. Frankly speaking, the way the state organs were misused, it looked as if they had become the “Sarkari” (state-run) militant wings of the rulers. Fake FIRs, arrests, torture, missing and custodial killings of the people have been very common functions of these "Sarkari" militant wings.  

At the time of signing the Charter Of Democracy (COD), all the political and religious parties including specially PML-N and PPP mutually agreed not to repeat their “mistakes” of the 90`s. This was an on-record confession before the people of Pakistan by the both ex- ruling parties. The COD was truly representative of what the rulers had been doing during the 90`s against their political rivals. In addition to this, in 2007, not only the media, but also the Pakistani judiciary revealed that they had been enslaved by the rulers of the time for the last 60 years (It needs not to mention what targets were achieved by keeping them under their control). Thus, it clearly indicates that the state-run militant wings did not consist of only the law-enforcement Agencies, but also the media and the judiciary.

The question is, why were the state organs including the LEA, media and the judiciary misused for illegal activities? Why did they become the puppets of the corrupt rulers so easily? Were they not aware that whatever they were doing against their own Muslim Pakistanis, as per the instructions of the rulers, was against the Constitution, prevailing laws, ethics and the Islamic principles? How can they avoid the responsibility of the thousands of people who even lost their lives because of them?

In a talk show before the elections, the PML-N`s Khwaja Saad Rafique tried to portray his party as “innocent” in comparison to others saying, “The PML-N has now come out of the politics of Dore-e-Jaheliyat of the 90`s”. The question is, in such a situation, can a political rival who is on the hit list of the rulers find any forum from where he can seek justice from??

Truly speaking, this was the same “Dore-e-Jaheliyat” of the 90`s in which a military operation was launched against MQM in the name of operation clean up. During the operation, the both political as well as military establishments made full use of all the state machinery as their private militant wing against MQM. On one side, all the Pakistani law-enforcement were being utilized to crush MQM, on other hand, the ethnically-cum-politically motivated victimization was being justified by way of propaganda from the same controlled media. Moreover, when MQM raised its voice over it, all the intellectuals, columnists and the democratic parties asked MQM to seek justice from the same enslaved judiciary.

Now, once again, the same “Sarkari” militant wings are being used against MQM in the same way. During the last 5 years, the police was used either to target MQM workers or to follow the strategy of “criminal silence” in order to allow the anti-MQM elements to brutally kill them. The still on-going violence, especially despite the presence of Rangers in Karachi for more than 20 years, is the undeniable proof of the same vicious policy.

Unfortunately, nobody is raising his voice against the “Sarkari Militant Wings” being used against MQM. The question is, should the so-called “impartial” anchorpersons, the analysts and the people from the Human Rights Commission not speak against the state-owned “Sarkari Militant wings” which are, once again, being used to eradicate MQM?

All the champions of democracy, Islam, rule of law and human rights must speak the truth and come forward to stop the on-going conspiracy against a community and its representative party. Otherwise, using the “Sarkari” militant wings may justify the emergence of the private militant wings in the under oppressed people and parties that will not benefit the country at all.