THAT the Pakistan Army has a failsafe system of accountability for its officers as well as the rank and file was vindicated yesterday, when the Chief of Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa ordered the removal of the ISI and Rangers officials involved in the “Karachi incident”.
A statement by the ISPR said that further departmental proceedings will be conducted against the erring officials for having acted “overzealously”. It was in the wee hours of Oct 19 that Rangers personnel, accompanied by some intelligence officials, had arrived at IG Sindh Mushtaq Mahar’s house and forced him to go with them to the local sector commander’s office. There, the province’s top police officer was compelled to sign arrest orders for Capt Mohammed Safdar who had been accused in an FIR of having desecrated the sanctity of the Quaid’s mausoleum the previous day. His arrest from the hotel room where he and his wife Maryam Nawaz were staying during their visit to Karachi for the PDM rally in the city immensely embarrassed the Sindh government.
The Sindh police too were enraged; at least 13 senior officials applied for leave on the grounds that their high command had been derided and the entire force left “demoralized and shocked”. What seemed to be snowballing into a full-blown crisis was rather neutralized only when army chief Gen Qamar Bajwa complied with PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s request to hold an inquiry into the incident. Now it emerged the FIR against Capt Safdar was also based on wrong information, adding to the already absurd nature of the episode.
PPP chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has welcomed the actions taken by the army chief, while PMLN supremo has “rejected” the report. That a probe has been conducted and action started against those who trampled so barefacedly upon the rule of law deserved applause. Nevertheless, the matter should not end here.
Junior officers, though zealous, would not act like that on their own initiative without a go-ahead from higher-ups. Mr Bilawal Bhutto looking to Gen Bajwa to order an inquiry, which was undertaken, also shows that the perpetrators were taking orders from individuals in the security establishment. Both the ISI and Rangers, whose top units include serving military officials on deputation, officially report to the prime minister and the interior minister, respectively. Nevertheless, the near disastrous outcome of this episode indicates the perils of this chain of command being disturbed.
The military has needlessly been hauled into an unpleasant political row, one that it could well have done without. Security institutions must keep distance from civilian matters, which will help restore their credibility and draw less controversy.
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