Its terror-conducive justice system, backed by the machinations of the politico-military-clergy triad, is a hoax. The country had better be prudent
Pakistan’s overall criminal justice system on terrorism is a creaking sham, not just owing to the complicity of the politico-military-clergy triad but also due to the compromised nature of the two essentials of any criminal justice system, i.e. prosecution and the judiciary. Despite various Anti-Terrorism Acts (ATAs), Anti-Terrorism Courts (ATCs) and even more grandiloquent National Action Plan (NAP) — the conviction rates in terror cases in Pakistan remain abysmally low, if at all the convictions take place. The judiciary has historically been an integral part of the Pakistani establishment’s machinations as exemplified in the mid-50s when Chief Justice Muhammad Munir had propounded the “doctrine of necessity” to legalise General Ayub Khan’s extra-legal takeover of the country by suggesting that “which is otherwise not lawful is made lawful by necessity”. But the fickle nature of intrigues and inter-institutional one-upmanship can result in the judiciary taking on the politicians and Generals also — not necessarily to uphold the law but pursuant to their own institutional turf wars. A special court trying the former Pakistan Army chief and President, Pervez Musharraf, had stunningly announced for him the death penalty by majority votes (which was later overturned); and, more recently, the Pakistani Chief Justice had rejected a petitioner’s last-minute withdrawal plea that had initially challenged the extension of the Pakistan Army chief’s tenure. It was followed by a tense three-day drama which kept the politicos and the Generals on the tenterhooks. The wheels-within-wheels of manipulation and vested interests by all the competing arms of governance have ensured the perpetuation of the rot that facilitates “terror nurseries”.
Pakistan is precariously poised to potentially get “blacklisted” for supporting and financing terror and is under constant review by the watchdog agency, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). But a few weeks ago, the Sindh High Court had set aside the provincial Government’s detention orders pertaining to the four terrorists held for the abduction and gruesome murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl. The horrifying case of the journalist’s decapitation had shocked the conscience of the international community but the provincial court declared it “null and void” and not warranting “any sort of detention”. The acting Attorney-General of the US, Jeffrey Rosen, indignantly remarked that the “separate judicial rulings reversing conviction and ordering release are an affront to terrorism victims everywhere”, and the family of the journalist called it a “travesty of justice”. For its part, India is well versed with the Pakistani judicial system as a similar fate was bestowed upon the likes of Hafiz Saeed, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and the other masterminds of the Mumbai 26/11 carnage who are often “detained”, “kept under house arrest” and even “sentenced” to appease the international community and keep the FATF proceedings from reaching harsh and punitive action, but are able to indulge in their nefarious activities nonetheless.
Intelligence sources had named the terror and Sunni-supremacist organisation, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, as being one of the key participants in the Daniel Pearl murder case. The dilly-dallying, obsequiousness and the long rope afforded by the courts to such organisations ensure that they continue to thrive irrespective of their crimes. The complicated history of the Pakistani military and its intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), in nurturing and supporting such outfits from time to time has always ensured that there are crucial “contacts” and “sympathisers” within the military and the additional pusillanimity by other levers like the judiciary, completely enfeebling the anti-terror commitments that exist only in name. Unsurprisingly, last week, the same Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and ISIL (ISIS) cadres were said to have killed 11 Hazara Shia coal miners after abducting them, tying up their hands and shooting them in cold blood — another statistic was added to Pakistan’s bloody societal violence that is unmatched in its brutality, and apparent acquiescence and leniency from the Government’s side, at the same time.
To add insult to injury in the lamentable circus that besets Pakistan, Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari inconceivably said: “India-funded terrorists in Balochistan are getting more desperate as development comes to the province!” The reality of the supposed “development” in the region barely masks the fact that the persecuted Shia Hazara community, from which these miners had come, is huddled in two heavily guarded ghettos in Quetta and surrounded by high walls and barbed wire, after hundreds of them were killed in sectarian violence over the past couple of decades. For the religious minorities and the “deemed minorities” like Shias, Ahmediyas and several others, justice is a far cry.
Even if the odd individual wishes to stand up for justice and for upholding the constitutional provisions, the societal regression that envelops the Pakistani judicial system is all-pervasive and powerful, as was seen when the proud murderer Mumtaz Qadri (who had killed Punjab Governor Salman Taseer in broad daylight) was showered with rose petals by the resident lawyers when he attended court. The judge who finally gave Qadri the death sentence had to face an impromptu strike by the District Bar Association, had his office vandalised and was forced into exile out of the country, fearing for his life. Further, the witness protection programmes in Pakistan are completely ineffective as “influential” bodies routinely and brazenly ensure intimidation and retractions, and people are simply too scared to testify.
The patent sophistry of ascribing the booming terror network in Pakistan onto the so-called “non-State actors” is a bogey that has lost all credibility. No such apparatus or ecosystem can survive for so long with such impunity despite so many Acts, laws and military exercises aimed at “uprooting terror” — unless the elements of the lawmakers (politicos), law enforcers (police/paramilitary), military, religio-social leaders and the judiciary themselves are hand in glove with the perpetrators. Indeed, many a time these terror elements also turn onto their one-time benefactors to settle scores and, therefore, the disentanglement of the murky terror wirings is not very obvious, linear or simple, given the multiplicity of the individual and institutional cross-support afforded to them from time to time. Therefore, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s unconvincing posturing as the “victim of terror” is akin to crying wolf as the Frankensteinian reality convinces nobody. The quartet of Pakistan’s military-politicians-clergy-judiciary can never come clean or abort their inter-linkages with such elements. But they will do well to remember that the slippery slope of terror spares absolutely no one.
(The writer, a military veteran, is a former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry. The views expressed are personal.)
