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Sectarian wars

At about midday in Karachi on our 48th Independence Day, two activists of SSP were killed and 13 wounded in an exchange of fire with law enforcement agencies. The LEAs suffered first at the hands of the SSP, taking three casualties, including one ASI badly wounded, before returning automatic fire directed from Masjid-i-Siddiq Akbar (one gunman was in the minaret with an AK-47) where about 600 SSP supporters had taken “refuge”. Before the LEAs could fully cordon off the mosque, most of the gunmen slipped away but even then six firearms including one AK-47 (Kalashnikov) were recovered from the possession of those in the mosque. In trying to get at the gunman holed up in the minaret, two policemen entered the mosque with their boots on. On Aug 15, 1994, an emotional Maulana Azam Tariq, MNA of the SSP displayed blood-stained clothes of his supporters in the National Assembly and gave a 48-hour ultimatum for action against the officials of the LEAs who had committed “sacrilege” by “desecrating” the mosque. As a respected Muslim elder, one would expect that Maulana Azam Tariq should have, in the same breath, condemned those of his supporters who initiated the process of sacrilege by taking arms into the mosque in the first place and using this place of worship as a fortress to rain bullets on their opponents and the members of the LEAs, equally indiscriminately.

The tragedy is that on the day before, Aug 13, 1994, the GOC Karachi, Maj Gen Akram, anticipating street violence, had called in the two major sectarian leaders, Allama Hassan Turabi of the Fiqah Jafria and Hafiz Ahmad Baksh of the SSP separately and extracted from both of them solemn promises to keep their supporters in line on this auspicious day. In spite of his pledges, Hafiz Ahmad Baksh (of Muzaffargarh), after visiting the Quaid’s Mazar at about 9:30 a.m on 14 August, reached Ancholi in a riotous procession raising provocative slogans, picking up supporters along the way, some of them armed. At Ancholi they proceeded to get into a shouting match with Fiqah Jafria supporters which resulted in an exchange of fire, luckily without any serious casualties on either side. By this time the LEAs (mainly police and Rangers) had got into the act to keep the two sides apart. When the SSP procession reached Nagin Chowrangi, they holed out in their local HQs, Masjid-i-Siddiq Akbar, a short distance away from the Shia Community’s Masjid-i-Babul Ilm, and proceeded to indiscriminately fire at foes and umpires alike. Needless to say the Shias returned to fire.

The Brigade Commander on the spot, Brig Mujahid Alam, is symbolic of the fine emerging young leadership of the Army, a no-nonsense breed that relies heavily on professional merit and above-par competence rather than on any “village connection” and “messbar” rhetoric for career advancement. Along with his GOC, Maj Gen Mohammad Akram and Corps Commander, Lt Gen Lehrasab Khan, he constitutes what can be said to be fairly representative of the Army’s “Dream Team”. The Army has thrown their finest into Karachi’s cauldron, as an amalgamated unit at various tiers of command, there are no better human beings and professional soldiers in this Army, their reaction on the spot was fair and effective as befits their integrity and training. To maintain the peace of the land they took the necessary adequate steps in the circumstances and avoided a greater bloodbath which would have engulfed this city if they had been indifferent or showed lack of purpose in their approach. Their inaction would have had tragic repercussions throughout the country, it is now upto respected leaders like SSP MNA Maulana Azam Tariq to see the inherent dangers in exploiting this incident.

While law and order in the trouble city of Karachi has certainly become Gen Akram’s business in supersession to his primary mission as a soldier, why have people like the Sindh CM abdicated their political and administrative responsibilities? While this tragedy was unfolding, the Sindh CM was seen Nero-like on prime time PTV enjoying the Independence Day Jashn Mela in Islamabad the same evening, an extremely symbolic event in the circumstances to show how far we are removed from reality. While the Army’s finest is getting increasingly involved in keeping ethnic and sectarian factions apart within the country instead of their prime mission of defending their country’s frontiers, the political leadership is free to enjoy the trappings of power, oblivious of their real responsibility of devoting every waking moment in keeping peace and harmony within the country. While the Independence Day celebrations were more than welcome as a palliative to the growing miseries of the masses, PM Ms Benazir Bhutto would have done well to send Abdullah Shah packing post-haste back to his burning city to face upto his responsibilities as the CM of Sindh rather than leaving the Army increasingly in the dock (and on the firing line) to clean up the political muck.

Faced with a no-win situation where the civilian leadership very happily shifts the burdens of law and order wherever it seems to be deteriorating onto the Army’s shoulders, the Army leadership must ask itself this rhetorical question, are the many compromises that it has been making for the past year for democracy worth the effort (and has it worked out the consequences of inaction)? Or is it time to look for simpler more direct solutions? Gen Babar may have put the Army firmly back in its place as the servants of the people, but it seems more like grudging subservience to a privileged, lucky few in misplaced constitutional logic. Time and tide waits for nobody, for that matter we may well have gone past that invisible fail-safe line where even the Army’s surrogates can provide answers to Pakistan’s problems.

Faced with the May 1965 Rann of Kutch disaster, PM Shastri of India had promised war “at a place and time of (his) choosing” and lived upto his threat of imposing war in September 1965 though he failed in his principal objectives. On 15 Aug 94, PM Narasimha Rao of India has promised to “liberate Azad Jammu and Kashmir” and given past precedence we must take him seriously. While Pakistan’s Armed Forces will certainly ensure he fails, they can only do so if our political leaders allow the Army to disengage from the country’s internal problems. Unfortunately, this our democratic leaders do not seem prepared to do.

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