Transparency: need of the hour
By Kamran Shafi
Tuesday, 26 May, 2009 | 07:17 AM PST
WHO were the four young men, seemingly soldiers but in a dishevelled state and with overgrown hair and beards, in the custody of the terrorists (I henceforth refuse to refer to the brutes as Taliban, for a Talib is a student of religion, not a thieving, fanatical, slaughtering machine), who were interviewed by a TV channel, and which footage is available on YouTube?
Were they indeed SSG commandos on a mission when they were captured and paraded before the press as thieves and dacoits by the terrorists? Where did the news then come from, that they had been shot and decapitated 10 days later, but that before they were thus despatched by the bestial terrorists, killed eight of their captors by breaking their necks?
This last I believe was given to the press by Minister Dr Babar Awan when he attended the funeral of one of the officers in Kahuta. There was also dishonourable mention in the press of then commissioner Malakand Syed Mohammad Javed in the soldiers killing.
But why wasnt any of this released properly and in detail to the press/electronic media by the ISPR at the daily press briefing by the DG ISPR? Why were we, the public, not told the exact date on which this drama began to unfold? Indeed, why were we not told what action the TV channel took after it recorded the interview? Did it inform the army where the interview took place; who arranged it; who facilitated the teams travel there and back?
We must understand that the fight we face is not with an enemy we do not know (where, too, our intelligence agencies are supposed to have complete knowledge of just who he is), that he is from amongst us and is one of us. He might well have Chechen and Uzbek and Chinese and Arab Yahoos among his ranks but he is well known to us. And because he is well known to us, we are well known to him. Why then the subterfuge? Why were the young men trained not to let out that they were SSG, instead of one saying he was from the AK Regiment; the other from the Baloch Regiment and so on? Why werent the Yahoos told exactly who their prisoners were, and that all hell would break loose if even a hair on their heads was harmed?
Might one also ask the following questions: was there any hope held out that the young men would be released in exchange for Yahoo prisoners when the commissioner Malakand met their captors? Why did the commissioner acquiesce to the Yahoos offer that he take the weapons back, but leave the hapless soldiers behind? Why was there no engagement with the enemy that was holding our four brave sons hostage? Why were there no aerial sorties over the site of the prison, just to tell the Yahoos we knew exactly where they were? Why was an extrication raid not mounted for all of the 10 days between the TV interview and their execution, with SSG rappelling out of helicopters under intense fire from helicopter gunships?
This is a most shameful occurrence, and I would advise the army to carry out a thorough inquiry, stripping everything/everyone bare. It is simply unacceptable that a TV channel should get such access to active-duty soldiers who are about to be put to death by the very worst type of cruel and unfeeling Yahoo and nothing is done about it. Far better, I say, for these four young braves to have died in a hail of gunfire in which their captors also got killed, than to be kept imprisoned like animals by beings (well, creatures of an hitherto unknown origin) who are infinitely worse than any animal awaiting execution.
I salute the four, like I do the other young men who are falling to the bullets and the knives of this wild horde of our own making: a product of our own insecurities and foolishness and idiocy. Strategic depth did someone say? More like strategic death if you ask me.
In the meanwhile, might I request the leaders of Pakistan, India and Afghanistan to heed the words of that courageous and wise man, Afzal Lala; yes, him of Swat, when he asks the three countries to stop tripping each other up and to form a strategic partnership to root out militancy from South Asia forever? Why, asks Lala, cant we do it when the Europeans for one, can? I could not agree more with this honourable man, for South Asia is today confronted with the very worst crisis that any region can possibly face.
An appeal to My Lord the Chief Justice of Pakistan: On July 1, 2008, I had written in this same space regarding the apparently criminal enterprise of converting the Doongi Ground in Lahore to an entertainment park complete with Imax theatre; huge shopping plaza et al, by an entity called the Punjab Entertainment Company on the board of which sat eight serving secretaries to the Punjab government:
I visited Lahore recently and was shocked to see the extent of the ugliness that stared me in the face in place of the ground upon which the local children and their friends played cricket. My mind went racing back 30 years when my younger boy Kassem used to visit his great and good friend Mufti who lived very near the Doongi Ground. Whenever I went to bring my son back from visiting Mufti I used to find that the boys had gone to the ground to play cricket with other neighbourhood children.
To add insult to injury, the Punjab government changed the use of the land through several subterfuges, even paying hundreds of millions in consultancy fees/compensation to all manner of people, including the Commandos favourite theatre producer/director Shah Sharabeel who was reportedly paid Rs4.5m to let go his rights over the Doongi Ground, handed over to him by, you guessed it, the Punjab Horticultural Authority, once headed by Kamran Lashari.
Now where did we hear Shah Sharabeels name before, in connection with other lucrative government leases? Remember the other Doongi Ground, this time in Islamabads F-7 Markaz, that was handed over to this person by the CDA to develop a mini-golf thingy on it; a junk food outlet, et al? And who was the chairman CDA when this little transaction happened? Er, none other than self-same Kamran Lashari.
My Lord, you pronounced on the Doongi Ground affair when you stayed construction on the site vide order dated 07/08/2006 after it had come to light that the then additional registrar (judicial) of the LHC did not have clean hands in the matter.
Your Lordship, Doongi Ground needs your urgent attention once again. The previous government has hung a massive albatross around the present ones neck by, as one example, paying cash up front for the Imax equipment (which is always leased). An example must be made of those who played ducks and drakes with government moneys that could have been far better used to provide, say, clean drinking water to half of Lahores population.
My Lord, you might like to consider an investigative committee under Mr Justice Bhagwandas on the lines of the petroleum prices committee. My Lord, over Rs500m has already been flushed down the Doongi drain.