The killing mind

Karachi's population is in perpetual threat. Balochistan is suffering from a different type of physical threat and the areas that were always considered safe for travel are not so anymore. The loss of life is not to be taken lightly for it can spell disaster. I had served in former East Pakistan when social conditions had considerably deteriorated.
The minds of East Pakistanis had been systematically served by a hate campaign that ultimately led to separation. That took some time but now with the electronic media moving at such electrifying speed the danger has accelerated and there is again a talk of a system that is seeking a political solution to what is going on. The debate by political parties is naïve and untenable. I have heard them speak of yek jehti (collective forum) of political parties and they should fight this collectively. Sermonising and preaching is alright but there has to be an understanding of the causative factors. What has made the mind so aggressive as to not respect human lives? The collectiveness of politicians is a lot of wishful thinking. Karachi killers are different and what is required is a management system that works to and at the level of the minds of the killers. What has been the pattern of killing, what have been the spatial aspects and which areas require intelligence of a different kind? How does one penetrate the groups that are responsible for these acts against humanity? Who gathers this information and what use is it put to?
First the personalities of those who debate these issues. The time has come to probably work humanely rather than think that these deaths are someone else's so we are not concerned. The deaths in South and North Waziristan should affect me as much as any in my own family. No one and I repeat no one has immunity in a social system that deteriorates so quickly and socially in macro terms. The debaters sitting with anchorpersons are airing opinions as if these are facts. The lack of knowledge is reflected by loud the voices by the participants. Ignorance is linked to egoistic assertions. There is no one on the media who states that they are unaware of facts. It is not uncommon for every person sitting there talking at the same time. There is time to have a meeting on electronic media where silence and decency is observed rather than verbosity.
In Pakistan, we cannot afford the excessive application of fear as that would engender further into separateness. The political parties and their reps on TV are forever pushing the agenda of fear and egoistic assertions. All of them have reached the zenith without doing anything. Consider all of them. I was doing an evaluation of the assets, declared before the election commission by the politicians. One such public representative had purchased prize bonds worth 30 crores of rupees. He is on TV as the Good Samaritan and the piety of the person is astounding. What gives him away is the fact that his family house is not even worth one lakh of rupees. So how has he collected this wealth besides the other real estates that he has somehow managed. This is not an exception but the rule.
The inequity and the selective nature of our policies are partially responsible for the deteriorating social conditions. Add to this the experience(s) that we have had with the police. Go to the jail and examine the situation there. Women prisoners have been made into prostitutes and the majority of them have been lifted on trumped up charges. Even those that were picked up by the law and order agencies after the recent acts of killings in Karachi were wrongly apprehended. The people of the area protested. But what good is this protest. As a result of the Musharraf's police reforms there is no forum where the victimised can go. The District Magistrates' office is no longer there. Instead there is a castrated Deputy Co-ordinating Officer (DCO). The office is without authority and responsibility. The District Magistrate (DM) worked under three hats (some times more), as Deputy Commissioner (DC) and as Collector. As DM he was answerable to the High Court, as DC he was answerable to the executive branch of the government, the Chief Secretary and the Chief Minister and as Collector he was responsible for the revenue side as well as the agrarian structure and its organisation in the field. That he was overworked is definite but he was also trained and educated for wielding authority and handling responsibility. Where is the policeman now? I had stated at that time that the police would be under threat and would be attacked. Well, it has happened sooner than I thought. The institutional arrangements for maintaining law and order were dismantled by the funds provided by the UNDP. Who was behind it and my friend in the UNDP stated that the funds were provided by the US. Are we toadies of the US? Why cannot we take an evolutionary step in this particular case and take and keep the best of the system, discarding the obsolete. Instead we have allowed others to interfere in our internal affairs and to dismantle the structure so assiduously built. They have succeeded in destabilising the country. The external destabilisation was on the borders with Afghanistan and the internal was created through the administrative reforms and such other policy issues that we were counselled to implement by the conditions given by the WB/ADB.
What is the psychological basis for this kind of activity? We have been creating special people and forgotten the common person. The rules and the benefits accruing to the powerful are much more than what are going to the poor. Why are we so mean, we who are the special people? Has politics changed this? Have the public representatives changed the outlook and have the poor been looked after? Or are the politicians looking after their own requirements and those of their future generations?
Is the excluded still sulking from the aftermaths of sixty years of inequitable development? Is there a cure? I (I was sidelined at that time) had written a DO to Musharraf advising against the killing of Baloch leader Akbar Bugti. He was warned of the possibility of his being charged with murder. I had broken bread with the late Bugti on two or three occasions and I had found him a moderate and a rare Balochi who understood governance. Musharraf acknowledged the letter but he did what he did. By that time Musharraf was deaf and dumb - leaders living in ivory towers develop such faults. He was a murderer in another sense too. Had there been a DM worthy of his salt a murder would have been registered for the assai nation of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto. The chain of events could have ascertained the conspiracy as given by the criminal procedure code.
The specialness of power structure is what is required to be sorted out. Will this power structure be egoless? Look around you and see if that is possible. The egos are what will not let us look at special requirements of the majority of the people. The world of the ego, any ones, is easily offended. When that happens a train of hate and revenge sets in. Are we an ego-dominated nation? If we are, then the nature of killing in Karachi and elsewhere can be understood? Is it because the ordinary citizen has not been provided justice not in the judicial sense but in the social sense?
Where then is the cure? The cure lies in having responsible people in authority. People with courage to say 'no' to the power structure if the sought after effort is illegal and irregular. At the moment the politicians are on the attack as they have had sham democracies in position. In the ultimate if nothing is done then the world will shrink for everyone.
How do we locate killers? If we have the wherewithal as we should then security of Pakistan is and will be there. If not then the curtain has fallen on the country that was built on theological grounds. The present state of Pakistan is diseased. Since one has run out of space the cure will come next time.