Why this lethal confrontation?

Taking suo moto notice of the use of excessive force by the police against lawyers and journalists, the Supreme Court on Monday ordered suspension of two top officials of the capital police and the deputy commissioner. Last Saturday, these officials directed a 'teach them a lesson' kind of operation against some lawyers who wanted to disrupt the scrutiny of nomination papers of presidential candidates by the Election Commission of Pakistan.
With the help of about a thousand-strong force, some of it in plain clothes, the Inspector General and his deputy saw to it that the protesting lawyers who numbered not even half of the police force, were beaten hard enough not to venture another such demonstration. The tear gas used to disperse the crowd was more pungent than the one generally used, prompting the court to order its chemical analysis.
The cruelty of the police action can be assessed by the report that the baton-charging policemen did not spare someone who lay unconscious by the roadside. By the end of the day the casualty score was simply shocking: over 40 lawyers, about 20 journalists and at least three political figures suffered wounds and had to be treated at the hospital.
The kind of treatment the police meted out to the demonstrators and journalists was far more brutal than the one normally reserved for the violators of law and order in such public demonstrations.
If police officials and the deputy commissioner were under instructions to teach the protestors an unforgettable lesson, it was against the law no doubt, but the question is why were the lawyers on the streets to disrupt the electoral process by physical force? Being the eyes and ears of society they should pursue their struggle through courts and their weapons should be the law books.
But here they were scuffling with the police and the arena was situated right on the Constitution Avenue, within earshot of the President House, near the Main Secretariat and equidistant from the Supreme Court and the Election Commission office. Of course, sit-ins and human-chain sieges are part of protests even in the most civilised societies, but nowhere do the lawyers take upon themselves the duty of physically disrupting the electoral process.
The torture and punishment the police delivered to the media persons is understandable, though unacceptable. Ever since the lawyers' drive through the country in support of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was reported live by the electronic media with uninhabited openness the government is wary of this genie that has got out of the bottle.
Though the government keeps claiming credit for the unprecedented freedom of the press, the free media, it appears, is viewed as a nemesis for the present dispensation. Instead of conceding that such unlimited freedom was not digestible, it started using various underhand methods to restrict the coverage - like beating up reporters, breaking the television-crew's equipment, switching off power supply. Saturday's police action against journalists reflects that thinking.
But given the degree of brutality let loose on the media persons, it was clearly a case of overkill. The physical attack on the Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, Tariq Azeem Khan, and parliamentary leader, Farooq Sattar, was no less deplorable and disconcerting. These incidents too should be probed and the responsible for the assault brought to book.
Frankly speaking, by the end of the day both sides of the bloody confrontation were net losers. The government lost its face as a champion of free media and had its very faithful officials suspended by the Supreme Court. It is likely to lose face further as the case would proceed, for in there media is the party against it. But there is a message for the lawyers also, in that they should rely more on their brain power than the vim and verve their muscles pump into their protests.
The point that should not be lost sight of is that the country is passing through a very difficult period of its sixty years' existence. Simultaneous with the regime's do-or-die struggle to eternalise its rule is the widespread unrest gripping a greater part of Balochistan and a mini-civil war in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Our contribution to the so-called war on terror has also exposed us to the threats and dangers of outside aggression.
It is the time that the contending leaderships should consider toning down their rhetoric, control their egos and think beyond the glittering palaces in the foothills of the Margalla where holding power is publicly perceived as sitting at the mouth of a gold mine. Otherwise, one wonders, why such a deadly clash for a public-service responsibility?