By Akbar S. Babar
Pakistan was never a state where fear reigned supreme, it is today.
The ‘Chuk Lay’ doctrine or ‘Pick Him Up’ in Punjabi was never the accepted norm of dealing with opponents, it is today.
In the past, one would hear news reports from some South American states also labeled as ‘Banana Republics’ where individuals would disappear and mass graves appeared infrequently. Gen. Augusto Pinochet of Chile symbolized it all.
In Pakistan, the trend of ‘Chuk Lay’ started gaining traction after 9/11 when we allowed and facilitated the CIA to ‘Chuk Lay’ supposedly the bad guys without due process of law as documented in Gen. Musharraf’s memoirs “In the Line of Fire.”
Except for a few of us, most turned a blind eye to it as long as dollars poured into the country’s perpetually empty economic basket. Even our human rights activists, otherwise in the forefront against human rights violations, turned a blind eye as the ‘bad guys’ wore a beard and a turban with supposedly primitive values.
even our activists turned blind eye as the ‘bad guys’ wore a beard
But just like an addiction that starts with small dozes and goes out of hand, the ‘Chuk Lay’ doctrine soon expanded to include not just fundamentalist militants but political opponents without beards and with liberal and secular values.
The adherents to the ‘Chuk Lay’ doctrine consider the due process of law too cumbersome that usually allows the culprits to slip through legal technicalities. Hence, the ‘Judge, Jury, and Executioner’ became the undeclared policy of the State.
The problem became acute when those executing the ‘Chuk Lay’ doctrine also became absolute rulers thanks to a proxy that just refuses to deliver. History is littered with examples of unbridled power turning dirty. Pakistan was not going to be an exception.
history is literred with examples of unbridled power turning dirty.
The latest episode where the law enforcers reportedly became victims of the ‘Chuk Lay’ doctrine is a classic example of how power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. History also tells us that a day comes, no matter how late and at what bitter cost, when the ‘Chuk Lay’ doctrine is finally buried. Again, Pakistan will be no exception. Until then, stay safe. (Edited by Mamoona Shakoor)
(The Writer is founding President of PTI Balochistan. He served as central information secretary and subsequently as central vice President from 1999 to 2011. In 2011 he developed differences with PTI chairman Imran Khan over alleged financial irregularities in the party.)
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