Friday, August 7, 2015

Pakistan will stay and prosper


August 6, 2015

By Saeed Qureshi

Thanks to the combined determination and strategy of the government and the armed forces that Pakistan seems to be out of the dire straits of lawlessness. One could not imagine a year or so ago that the mayhem in which Pakistan was caught could be halted and reined in.

The proverbial Augean stables of lawlessness, galloping beast of thuggery and myriad and all-embracing violence have been markedly cleaned.  The culprits are being chased and apprehended.

This magnificent and heroic feat would go down in the history of Pakistan as an epic struggle for retrieving the sinking ship called Pakistan. Also this monumental endeavor lays down afresh the foundations of a new stable and strong Pakistan with glorious destiny for future generations.

Pakistan has become a hunting place for ubiquitous criminal gangs and marauding mafias caving into the foundations of Pakistan with daring audacity and dogged villainy. There were religious militants hovering over Pakistan like prying vultures and digging deep into the flesh.

There have been a whole range of vicious dacoits, robbers, extortionists, kidnappers’ bounty hunters, rapists, enemy agents and saboteurs stalking the length and breadth of Pakistan with impunity and defiance mocking the law enforcement agencies, courts, the justice system and the civil society.

These heinous perpetrators have been turning Pakistan into a banana republic and bringing it at par with societies riddled with bloody civil wars. These elements are patronized and abetted by the parties and individuals in power and commanding portfolios.

We have seen the Rangers, police and the army rounding up the outlaws in Karachi whose predominant lots consist of the foot soldiers and henchmen of the ministers of PPP, the MQM and religious crusaders. While a huge number of the combatants have been killed in encounters several hundreds have been arrested and their connections and links with the high-ups are being probed.

In Karachi alone the vicious mafias were stealing the water and selling it privately fetching to them billions of rupees. The kidnapping and forcible extraction of money had become a normal and routine money making lucrative business. The public vacant places like playgrounds and parks were occupied and those who raised alarm were silenced either by bribing or killing them.

The gang and sectarian feuds all over Karachi specifically and elsewhere in the country kept swelling to the extent that well-fortified military installations were brazenly attacked and partially or wholly destroyed. Pakistan had become an utterly unsafe place to live for the business community and industrial classes to carry on their ventures. The whole country has been up in flames.

In an email, a fellow writer gave horrifying figures of the military officers and rangers killed by the well organized and well equipped religious militants. The terrorists even ambushed a military school in Peshawar and killed around 150 teen age boys. That horrific incident turned out to be the beginning of the anti-crime colossal onslaught, still apace.

And then a miracle happens. The army steps forward under the conspicuously gallant and fearless chief General Raheel Sharif who turned the tables on the wreckers, and enemies of the country.

The army Jawans are laying down their lives in this war between the patriotic and unpatriotic forces. And we can now witness that the saboteurs, fifth columnists, the hardened thugs, heartless murderers and criminals are on the run.

It has been reported in the media that MQM was secretly in league with India to destroy social life and business activities in Karachi by all kind of atrocities and fear mongering brutalities. Scores of their underground operatives have been nabbed by the army and the rangers and startling information is oozing out.

As usual the MQM could have feigned innocence. But like a bolt from the blue, their boisterous arch godfather Altaf Hussain, in his harangue from London, called upon both India and NATO to rescue the Urdu speaking population from the Pakistan army as if ethnic cleansing of the Muhajir community was going in Pakistan.

It is possible that the trial of treason might be initiated against him and he is extradited to Pakistan. Perhaps the MQM wants a kind of rerun of the external intervention in 1971-72 civil war in the former East Pakistan and now Bangladesh. For MQM it could be Jinnahpur.

In the meantime the Rangers have asked the MQM to hand over 187 murder suspects. The MQM says that no party member is in rangers list of target killers.

A 17 members Bench of Supreme Court upheld military courts and rejected petitions for repealing the18th amendment by 14-3 votes and the 21st amendment by 17- 6 .It means that there would be speedy trials and award of sentences to the proven thugs and criminals irrespective of their backgrounds or political clout.