?I am responsible?
18/05/2007
Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur
The tragic events of cold-blooded murder, arson, intimidation and looting by the goons of a governmental coalition partner on May 12 in Karachi are as reprehensible and as unfathomable as the abdication of all responsibility by the government (if that is the correct term) of Sindh. What happened there that day will always be a blemish on the fair name of Sindh, a blot that the people of Sindh have tried to erase with a near complete unity in a strike on the May 14.
Equally shameful and condemnable is the total lack of acceptance of responsibility either by the so-called government or the ethnic outfit, MQM, which was allowed a free hand to gun down people, set vehicles and petrol pumps alight, attack the offices of Aaj TV with impunity, and humiliate and beat lawyers and journalists.
The government brazenly denies any role as does its coalition partner MQM in spite of the incontrovertible evidence provided by the video footage, pictures and news reports that intrepid and dedicated journalists provided for the world to see.
These daring journalists were neither ?embedded? (a lot can be read into the word ?bed?) nor were they presstitutes. All credit to these courageous journalists and the brave ambulance drivers who at great personal risk transported the wounded; the people expect them to do even better in future because more such crimes against the people can be expected from a government and its partners who are in their death throes.
The government and perpetrators of crimes against people are brazenly holding the Chief Justice responsible and unsuccessfully projecting themselves as victims. These allegations have been seconded by none other then the President and the PM. Moreover these last two gentlemen have called the carnage in Karachi a victory of the democratic forces. Is this the democracy that he promised when he unconstitutionally usurped power in October 1999?
Common sense, or as George Bernard Shaw termed it, ?uncommon sense? absolves the CJ of the above stated heinous crimes against the people because he was confined to the airport lounge for the entire duration of his stay in Karachi and none of his visits elsewhere had resulted in carnage. The mayhem had begun hours before his plane touched down.
The events, as details emerge, show that it was a meticulously planned operation: the blocking of the Shahrah-e-Faisal and the Sindh High Court building, the disarming of the police on the fateful day, the turning away of the CJ?s supporters at the toll plazas at the approaches of Karachi and Hyderabad, the allowing of MQM supporters into the city, the use of small arms and the unlimited availability of ammunition for them, the refusal of law enforcing agencies to intervene whereever the MQM goons were busy with murder and arson. And then after allowing these goons to kill and maim, the deployment of the Rangers with orders to ?shoot to kill? just to protect those rampaging goons from retaliation.
Surprisingly no one has claimed the credit for such meticulous planning that would even be the envy of the CIA. This urged me on to seek out who was responsible for such excellent planning, which resulted successfully in the calling off of the CJ?s visit Karachi and gave the opportunity to the General to brag about his ?people?s power? at his miserably flopped ?rent-a-crowd? meeting that day in Islamabad.
I?ll let on the readers to a well kept secret of mine. I have known Superman for long; yes Superman with a capital ?S?, the dream idol of every child who wants to perform miracles. I sought him out to ask if he knew who was responsible for the bloodbath; he was in his lair but he didn?t seem to be his usual self. Some sense of guilt seemed to be troubling him and he was remorseful.
I asked him the reason. At first he refused to answer. But being an old friend, on my persistence he came out with the straightforward admission: ?I am responsible for the carnage that took place in Karachi on May 12?.
I couldn?t believe my ears, Superman the self-proclaimed protector of the weak, the upholder of justice, the enforcer of the ?writ of the state?, devotee of enlightened moderation being responsible!
He then asked me if I had heard the news of ?Krypton? that was recently discovered in Siberia, white Krypton, not the green one which would kill him. Indeed I had heard of it. He said this white Krypton had the power to do what the name implies. He had been exposed to this Krypton or ?Corrupton? and it had corrupted him too, weakened his powers of reasoning and those of differentiating between good and evil.
He added that on the behest of a friend who told him that the city government wanted to serve the people of Karachi by making the Shahrah-e-Faisal a signal free road, he had placed the containers at the entry points of this main artery. He swore that the fork-lifts of PIA were not used by police to do the job. He had also lifted the long vehicles with deflated tyres to place them so that no one could come.
I asked him about the cordoning off of the High Court. He said he had been told that there was a threat against it so he had complied with their wishes. He also admitted to disarming of the police in the city because he was told that they had of late become trigger-happy and it was necessary to disarm them. He said you know how pliable the police is to official machinations. He had just said to them: ?Orders from above?, and they had obeyed.
He timidly accepted the responsibility of providing the ammunition to MQM goons at different locations, not realising that they were being used against the people. He said it was only after he saw the video footage of a frail octogenarian man being put on an ambulance that he realized the gravity of his crime. This footage shamed him out of the effects of Krypton, though it seems all this had no effect on the perpetrators. He wanted to make amends but by then he was too exhausted to even move a finger and since May12 he has been cooped up in his lair.
I asked him if he had had played any role in the ?Istehkam-e-Pakistan rally in Islamabad where the bhangra, the dancing, the drum beating and razzmatazz had been going on while the pictures of the carnage and bloodletting in Karachi were being seen by the world.
He swore that he had absolutely nothing to with that but told me that the rally in Islamabad had been under the personal supervision of Nero. I asked him whether this was the same Nero who fiddled while Rome was burning? He replied that very Nero, who keeps changing his attire to suit the needs of the situation that he finds himself in since he fiddled while Rome burnt.
I asked him if he understood the implications his actions would have on the fate of the people. He had a stupid smile on his face and expressed ignorance; it seemed Corrupton had truly eaten away the moral fabric which had been his strength. I wanted to turn away from him but thought that telling him may yet have some positive effect on him.
I said they had opened the Pandora?s Box of the spectre of ethnic conflict in Sindh and other places, a conflict which in the past has taken a deadly toll of human lives. That they had opened the floodgates to the rule of armed goons who have immunity because of the power they wield as coalition partners. That they had connived and abetted in sustaining a regime that lost its meaning the day it appeared.
Crushed by remorse, he said he was disabled by Krypton. He however added that those who thought they were Superman always had a disastrous fate and even the poor actors of his films suffered. One died when a live bullet found its way to a pistol and the other broke his neck in a fall. I asked what about the fate of those who acted like Nero. He said, ?Ask their fate from the fires they ignite.?
The writer has been associated with the Baloch national struggle |
