DAWN - Cowasjee Corner; 25 October, 1998
Metropolitan Police
By Ardeshir Cowasjee
HOPE is not dead. The restructuring programme of the Karachi Police is still on. The concept of the Karachi Metropolitan Police Department (KPMD), operating under the supervision of the Karachi Metropolitan Public Safety Commission (KMPSC) composed of citizens and members of the provincial government, still lives.
The transformation of the police system of our metropolitan cities into a system to be controlled by Public Safety Commissionerates has been on the anvil since it was first mooted in 1962 by Alvin Robert Cornelius, a member of the distinguished Indian Civil Service who retired as the Chief Justice of Pakistan. He did not lay a newly shaped egg; he logically recommended that our large cities be policed as are other such cities of the world. Over sixteen police reports subsequently written have, with variations, recommended similar reforms.
The aim has always been and still is to free the police from the clutches of our corrupt and selfish politicians. They use the police force to get themselves elected, and thereafter to perpetuate their stranglehold. By and large, the bureaucrats working under our politicos have been reduced to snivelling servants who selflessly go along with their masters' designs. The safety of life and property of the citizens is of little consequence.
Each head of government on assuming office has made noises about police reforms and thereafter has purposefully ignored the subject. That it is vitally important that metropolitan cities such as Karachi and Lahore must have their own independent police forces has never been denied.
Mr Nawaz Sharif, true to form, soon after he was elected to his second round in February 1997, assigned the restructuring task to Major General Sikander Hayat Khan, Chairman of his Monitoring and Evaluation Cell (M&EC). A police reforms package was agreed to in principle by the cabinet a few months later. But law and order being a provincial subject, the matter was referred to the provincial governments and then rejected by all of them, the politicians and bureaucrats not wishing to relinquish one iota of power.In Karachi, the tally of those killed by the terrorists over this past decade has been in the region of a dozen a day. Public immunity to news of death and organized killings is such that eyebrows are no longer raised when the daily tally is released to the press.
The prime minister, seemingly, has realized that whatever measures have been taken to ensure his survival, constitutionally or extra-constitutionally, by him and his scullery assistants are not such as to allow him to survive unless the safety of the people is ensured and the economy revived. He has given signs of having suddenly woken up to the plight of Karachi.
The coordinator of the PM's National Agenda Monitoring Cell, Haroon Khwaja, was deputed to set up a committee including certain members of his cell - Bilal Ahmed, Shehzad Naqvi, Munir Kamal, Zulfikar Cheema and Jameel Yusuf of the CPLC. They researched, waded through reams of paper and arrived at the unanimous conclusion that the Japanese model, supervised by a PSC, adapted to suit local conditions and norms, was ideal for Karachi. The committee made a presentation to the PM at Lahore on August 15. The usual dilly-dallying took place. No go. The killings continued, the terrorists upped their ante.
On October 12, I was asked to join the committee and was invited to a meeting to be held in Karachi on October 15 over which the PM was to preside. The objections of the politicians and bureaucrats were heard, and the PM directed that his cell members meet the Sindh chief secretary and others to sort out the differences and present to him an implementation schedule for the new plan when he returned to Karachi on the 20th. All ended on a deceptively positive note.
The people were hopeful of a change, hopeful that finally a decision would be taken that would go some way towards ending the city's misery. This newspaper and other publications editorially supported the proposed scheme, as did many citizens who wrote to the respective editors.
The committee's efforts to meet the concerned officials on the 16th failed. The excuse was that they were too busy. We met at 1100 hours on the 17th, they raised the usual frivolous objections. We requested them to list their objections and apprehensions together with their proposals as to how these could be overcome. The PM had approved the scheme in principle, and was keen that it went through. The CPLC office would remain open round the clock, over the weekend, and any information they wanted would be given at a moment's notice. We arranged to meet again at 1500 hours on the 19th.
We received a list of their apprehensions, objections, etc, at 1230 hours on the 19th. When we arrived for the scheduled meeting, no one from the government turned up. Sindh Home Secretary Wajid Rana was contacted and he agreed to come over. He told us he was in no position to comment on what had been sent to us. We informed him that our suggestions as to the solutions to their worries would be given to them before the day's end so that they could mull over them before we all met the PM at 1600 hours the next day, the 20th.
The citizens and their lawyers worked round the clock and a broadsheet showing both apprehensions and solutions was prepared and sent to the home secretary before midnight.
At the meeting on the 20th, over which the PM presided, lines were clearly drawn. The government side was totally disinterested in our broadsheet - oozing negativity. To enlighten its readers, this newspaper deemed it necessary to publish it in full on October 17.
Definite affirmatives to the proposed scheme: federal minister Sheikh Rashid, streetwise, sharp. The only minister capable of walking the streets of Karachi unescorted, the only man able to converse with the awam at their own level. He told us that he had gone out on his own at 0700 hours, had found the people apprehensive, fearful and utterly distrustful of the police force. His recommendation was that a decision be taken immediately and the implementation of the scheme be put into gear. Naturally, strongly and positively in the affirmative were Jameel Yusuf, Haroon Khwaja and I.
Sheepish affirmatives: federal minister Mushahidsahib, Ahsan Iqbal, Sindh law minister Saleem Zia.
Silent: Major-General Imtiaz Shaheen, the Rangers' chief, He was not asked to speak. But he too shares federal interior minister Chaudhry Shujaat's view that the city can be cleaned up in ten days, if the will is there and expediency shed. The Rangers know what is what, who is who, what and who are where. Left to themselves, they can do the job they are hired and paid to do. Acting governor Nawab Mirza uttered not a word, though his thoughts were known.
Definite 'No': federal minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali, Sindh CM Liaquat Jatoi, Sindh chief secretary Salik Nazir Ahmed, PM's special secretary Saeed Mehdi, Interior Secretary Hafizullah.
Sheepish 'No': federal minister Ghous Ali Shah and Haleem Siddiqui, IGP Aftab Nabi.
The PM, from what one could make out, supported the change, but in view of Jatoi's request that as he had been away having treatment in London for ulcer, he needed time to study the proposals, did not push the matter. Fine, said the PM. Let me have your report in 10 days' time, i.e. by October 31. Interior secretary Hafizullah was to write his report to be submitted in seven days, i.e. by October 28.
Insatiable greed for power, pelf, plots, peanuts, powder puffs and what have you invariably influences the now warped bureaucratic thinking, our administrators having been successfully reduced to whingeing wimps by the machinations of the politicians.
During this past decade, dating from October 1988, the chief ministers of Sindh and their federal bosses have had 13 IGPs of Sindh, the average tenure being 29 weeks. From the time Liaquat Jatoi entered in 1997, he has seen off six DIGs in charge of Karachi; the seventh is now in place. Four of the five districts of Karachi have had five SSPs, and one four SSPs. The total number of SHO changes/transfers in the main Karachi police stations are 120. The hammer price of one police station, Gadap, is well over a crore (approx. Rs.15 million).
Yesterday morning's news had it that those suspected of murdering Hakim Mohammad Said, together with their accomplices, have been found and apprehended. The other news was that the MQM had decided to rejoin the Sindh government, to resume their position as coalition partners. The two reports are, of course, completely unconnected.
One is reminded of an October 23 news item in Dawn: "Shujaat had told the prime minister before leaving for Casablanca that the time has come when the PML government should decide whther it wanted to continue wooing its coalition partners or improve the law and order situation."