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| India-Pakistan |
| Street crime & terrorism |
| 2017-12-17 |
| [DAWN] THE DG Sindh Rangers, Maj Gen Muhammad Saeed, has executed an almost perfect illustration of the saying ’to crack a nut with a sledgehammer’. Addressing a news conference in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... on Wednesday, the head of the paramilitary force said that robbers and street criminals should be tried as turbans under the Anti Terrorism Act and suggested that the home department was considering such a step. He went on to dilate upon the success of the Rangers-led operation in the city that he said had resulted in a steep decline in crimes such as assassination, kidnapping for ransom and extortion. Street crime, however, remained a concern, one that neither the Rangers nor the police had been able to curb. When a law-enforcement agency drafted in ostensibly to tackle the most serious crimes is tacitly given licence to use unbridled force ‐ including torture and extra judicial killings ‐ to achieve its objectives, it leaves both the law-enforcement apparatus and society brutalised. All nuance is lost: the ends justify the means. The DG Rangers’ statement is certain to have struck a chord with many people, especially those who have fallen prey to street crime. However, you can observe a lot just by watching... it is for good reason that vigilante ’justice’ lies outside the pale of the law; crime must be prosecuted according to a dispassionate rationale. Every act of criminality does not rise to the level of terrorism, which does not mean that certain types of crime should be condoned, but that perspective is important. Equating someone who, for instance, steals mobile phones, with a button man is overstating matters, particularly when there are several privileged individuals in our society who get away with actions that seem to constitute the legal definition of terrorism. Conflating street crime with terrorism also trivialises the crimes that attract the application of the ATA. Moreover, the DG Rangers is surely aware of how the ATCs are already clogged with cases. Adding to the bottleneck is hardly the answer. |
| Posted by:Fred |