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Imperatives of Peace and Crime Free Society
-letter
In the desert of turmoil and uncertainty, Chitral happens to be an oasis
of peace and personal safety but underneath there are cross-currents of
hatred and intolerance which can disturb the fragile peace, if sincere
efforts are not made to neutralize the negatives and re-enforce the
positives. So far we are either taking it for granted or at the most
trying to maintain it through negative re-enforcements.. A recent
example of this mindset will bear me out. A grade two student was trying
to hide a picture of a religious figure hanging around his neck, which
was distracting him from his studies, He was told to leave the picture
alone and concentrate on his studies. In response the student said that
his playmates did not tolerate the picture and would pull it out when
they see it. This increased my curiosity and I decided to understand the
factors which poisoned innocent minds and made them hate other religious
figures, who did them no harm. I was shocked to find that these innocent
minds had been poisoned by their parents and religious leaders. Given
this background, I find it difficult to believe that extremism is
foreign sponsored. At the most it can be said that the hay is locally
made and only match box is provided by elements hostile to Pakistan, who can be local or foreign.
Another important aspect of my reflection over this situation was even
more revealing of the culprit mindset. Despite having lived in
independence for more than 60 years we yet have to come out of the fear
syndrome, which is a historical hangover. It is a measure of the failure
of the state that it has yet to give genuine sense of security and
religious freedom to its people. State functionaries still try to
maintain peace at the cost of the vulnerable, through re-enforcing the
fear syndrome and in the process justice becomes the biggest casualty
and psychological hold of the arrogant communalists gets re-enforced on
people's minds.
It is time that saner elements in the society asserted themselves and
challenged the hold of communalists and retrogressive elements to
rediscover the real Chitral -a Chitral where people are respected for
what they are and not for what they believe in.. In the final analysis
religion is a private matter-a bond between man and God and is context
bound. A study of comparative religions makes it clear that all
religions have come to promote virtue and goodness. Religious methods to
achieve these objectives may vary but the essence remains the same. If
the taste of pudding is in the eating, then we Muslims have to learn a
lot from others through dialogue and harmony. For this dialogue, to be
meaningful, factionalism has to be eliminated by reviving the
institution of caliphate to unite the Muslims and provide leadership to
the dominant sect of Islam.
It is time that we wake up to the challenges of the emerging world order
and sincerely worked for genuine peace. This will be possible when our
children are socialized in the dynamics of peace. Religiosity comes in a
package. By demonizing one religion, we can not save the other. No one
can claim to monopolize the truth, which is said to be relative. By
interfering in the Divine domain to reward and punish we are doing no
service to Islam. To remain correct in the Divine scheme of things we
should not allow ourselves to be used by political adventurers and power
seekers. Our children are innocent and deserve to be groomed to respect
diversity and pluralism and that is the only way to integrate with and
benefit from, the ongoing process of globalization.
Coming to achieving the objective of crime free society, there is no
denying the fact that without public cooperation police can not succeed
in bringing about crime free society. The success of Citizen- Police
Liaison Committee in Karachi prompted policy makers to incorporate it in
the Local Govt.. Ordinance. In pursuance thereof Citizen-Police Liaison
Committees (CPLC) were established in Chitral also but due to lack of
monitoring these have become non functional.
Apart from the above, the police need to change some of its procedures
to truly become our heroes because of their valour during the war
against terrorism.. Under the flawed procedure performance of police
officers is linked with the number of cases registered by them. This
means that greater the numbers of registered cases, the brighter are the
chances of promotion for the police officers. In civilized societies
police are rewarded for bringing down crime rates and for establishing
crime free societies. In our present context it is the other way round,
which needs to be corrected.
Chitral is a peaceful area where very few crimes take place. But under
pressure from above and to show ‘performance police is forced to
register cases, some of them laughably petty. This tendency pits police
against the people making public cooperation with the police in more
serious cases next to impossible. This tendency needs to be curbed and
for this, besides, activating CPLC, police performance must be judged on
the basis of decreasing crimes and not the other way round. If this is
not done police will be compelled to manufacture cases and harass people
resulting in still widening gap between the citizens and the police. It
is time that police procedures are changed to make it proactive rather
than reactive as at present. Only a proactive police force can create
people friendly image for itself.
Chitralis and Chitral police are groomed in the tradition of peace and
harmony and as such they are naturally programmed to be people friendly.
If conductive and enabling environment is created, they have the
potential to be role model for the entire country.
Islamuddin,
Garam Chashma, Chitral.
08 March 09.
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