The official-cum-NGO team has returned from Kohistan with the news that two of the five girls alleged to be killed in compliance with a tribal jirga verdict are alive and well. The other three, the team said are believed to be alive but couldn't be reached given bad weather and inaccessibility of the mountain village they now live. But even the two found to be alive were not produced before the Supreme Court because their parents didn't allow, and the visiting team thought it fit to accept the excuse.
In a way the mystery surrounding the fate of five girls ordered to be killed for violating the tribal norms by mixing with men in a dance at a wedding as shown in mobile phone footage is solved - albeit only partly. But even the whole truth may not be known till later this month when the other three girls are expected to be found alive given the fact that the visiting team's determination may not pass the forensic test. How could the team members establish that the girls they met were the same as shown in the footage? Perhaps, the fingerprints of the 'alive' girls should be compared with those on their ID cards of girls shown in the footage. Mind you, our district-level administrations are notorious for staging fake gatherings and establishing spurious identities. Remember the fake flood-relief camps put up by local officials to welcome Prime Minister Gilani last year. Anyway, we leave it at that, hoping all five girls are alive and the footage that triggered the drama was doctored by its producer, who, according to Kohistan DPO, 'wanted to settle scores of his Salaykhail's enmity with Azadkhail'.
However, there are some lessons that we need to learn. For one, it greatly confirms the growing public perception that our media outlets, particularly electronic, overwhelmed by frenzy of 'breaking news' as it is presently, is not much troubled by releasing unconfirmed, half-baked stories. There seems to be no respect for the age-old professional norm that only verified information should be published or aired. How scant care is exercised in cross-checking the facts to be reported one may notice from the widely varied figures of casualties in an explosion or accident even when these take place at public places in broad day light. In case a reporter fails to verify his information he would be tempted to credit it to 'sources' which he says cannot be quoted or identified.
Not surprisingly a good many stories, some as explosive and of deep public concern, as the Kohistan story is, oblige superior judiciary to take suo motu notice. We don't know, neither we would like to predict, how the 'Kohistan girls' story is going to end, but we are definitely concerned about possibility that made-up situations and unsubstantiated claims have of late acquired the potential to feed the existing public despair and despondency. With that concern in mind we would like the authorities to uncover the whole truth in this highly disturbing incident. Not only it would help the media to learn a few lessons but, more importantly, would help the people see the good and the bad of the tribal jirga system which remains, so far, an inescapable fact of tribal life.