Rehman's raving

Posted on 10 months ago

PM's interior advisor Rehman Malik says he will become a petitioner in the missing person's case in his personal capacity and expose the people involved in the disappearances. But what is it that has held him back from this exposure so far? The issue, after all, is no new phenomenon. It has been raging over the past more than four years. The relations of the missing persons have been agitating ceaselessly over the period. They have been taking out processions, staging sit-ins and pitching protest camps to draw the attention of the authorities for the recovery of the disappeared. They routinely claim the missing persons were taken away by the agencies. But the agencies routinely deny the charge. Even the cases have landed in the courts, where the agencies are facing the music.
If Rehman knows of the people who actually are involved in these disappearances, why has kept quiet all along and not spilled the beans? Does he have an idea how his silence is leading up to the keeping of the agencies on the mat and consequently to the baneful demoralisation among their ranks and the concomitant encouragement and emboldening of the shady characters engaged in these disappearances? The Supreme Court bench hearing the case on lawlessness in Balochistan says that every third missing person case in the province is being blamed on the Frontier Corps. Then, what about the other two-third disappearances? Shouldn't that mystery be busted?
If Rehman knows, why hasn't he volunteered so far to tell the apex court in order to clear up the murky phenomenon of those mysterious disappearances? Why indeed has he not been making his say in the various superior courts hearing the cases of missing persons? Aren't they complaining from one to all that people are disappearing and nobody tells them what is what? If he has the clue and the information, shouldn't he have made it public, indeed at press meets and press conferences? After all, he has been the internal security czar throughout. And it is his incumbent duty not only to go after the culprits but also to take the public into confidence.
But quizzical have been the ways of Rehman Malik all along. He is always tardy where he has to be very prompt, and very opaque where he has to be very transparent. The corroborative evidence of his contention that Afghanistan harbours training camps of the Baloch dissidents he has never ever revealed to his own compatriots. Nor of Brahamdagh Bugti's being on the Indian and foreign agencies' payroll. Not even Harbiyar Marri's collusion with alien powers and spy services. As a result, his assertions carry little conviction; and self-servingly the self-styled Baloch nationalists and tyrannically exploitative sardars and chieftains easily get away with the hogwash that he is just feigning and lying, whereas he indeed may be telling the truth.
Nonetheless, Rehman has been an incapable, inept, rather an unfit, internal security chief. He indeed has instead distinguished himself as the loyal courtier of the MQM, always paying respect reverentially in the court of its supremo Altaf Hussain; not as the handler of the complex internal security issues of the state. He has let the much-desired project of the national counter-terrorism authority's formation go down the drain. Some four years ago, it was decided to set up this authority to act as a nodal agency of the nation's entire counter-terrorism effort. That long period has passed by without seeing even a speck of that authority on the ground. He possibly may even not know if the blueprint of that scheme is resting in some drawer in his own ministry or in some other establishment.
Likewise, he has seen the contemplated toughening up of the anti-terrorism law becoming a hash of it. An amendment to this effected has long been drafted. A legislative bill to this end has also been introduced to the parliament years ago, which he has puritanically shunned to pursue. Had indeed that draft amendment legislation been enacted into law, in all possibility it would have not been easy for the terrorism suspects to get off the hook in the courts. And in all probability, even the incidence of inexplicable disappearances would have seen diminishing in its occurrence. But then Rehman Malik has demonstrated himself to be a no man to man the crucial job of internal security.
Still, if he knows who are actually responsible for disappearances, he must come out with this information. He may become a petitioner in the missing persons' case. But he must disclose it at a press conference for the people to hear it from his own mouth. It is not written in the scriptures that he has to reveal it only to the court. Indeed, if he does it, this will be his singular service to the nation living with the dark mystery about the missing persons perplexingly.
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