If? Chief Minister (CM) Punjab has vowed to resign ‘if’ the judicial commission appointed to investigate and fix responsibility for the brutal killings of PAT workers in Model Town last week, finds him responsible for the horrible violence committed on citizens. Even given that Tahir ul Qadri is clearly a mischief maker aiming to disrupt democratic rule, at least nine persons were killed and several dozen injured in the plainly savage police action ever seen on television screens. What kind of responsibility is the Chief Minister thinking? Clearly, the commission will not find that Khadim-e-Aala fired the shots, because he did not. But as for the question of who should resign for unleashing terror on citizens, one does not need judicial commission reports to figure that out. The commission will presumably fix the criminal responsibility, not the political responsibility. Everyone knows where that lies.
Whichever way one looks at it, the Chief Minister is politically and administratively responsible and should be the one to resign. Khadim-e-Aala has run the province with an iron hand for the last six years and is therefore responsible now for the quality and capacity of the police force that Punjab deploys – members of this force being not only unprofessional and unethical enough to run amok looting and live firing into a crowd, but also dense enough to do so in front of television crews. If this is the corrupt, brutal and stupid force he has to show after six years, he needs to resign. When you cannot tell the difference between Gullu Butt and a police constable or officer, save for their clothing, something is very wrong.
Next, either the ill-conceived ‘operation remove barricades’ was ordered or initiated by him, or, far less likely, by someone subordinate to him without his knowledge. But again, it does not matter because the responsibility, in the political meaning of the word, lies with him. If the CM ordered it, he needs to resign not just for directly causing deaths of protestors, but also for taking a decision unfathomably unintelligent. ‘Operation Barricades’ catapulted a completely discredited political nobody onto the political and media center stage with a justified cause; it created a government created war zone in the heart of an urban center, whilst an actual military operation is ongoing in the tribal belt; it distracted public and media attention and concern from the war on terror, to the live horror show on television; it not only took innocent lives, but also provided strength to arguments of touts of undemocratic forces.
Dear Chief Minister, the public do not take kindly anymore to their elected governments being destabilized by charlatans and their handlers, much less to governments destabilizing themselves! No, we cannot approve of shenanigans that would get the lot of you kicked out by undemocratic forces, and hence demand of you to resign personally to allow accountability to be seen to be done; to allow justice to be seen to be done; to allow more intelligent, professional governance of the most populous, and politically most sensitive, province of the country; and to stay at once voices clamouring for ‘change’ and ‘revolution’.
Even if someone else committed this buffoonery on the CM’s watch and without his knowledge, he needs to resign for his ignorance of events unfolding in his backyard, and non-existent control over rogue elements in his administration and cabinet sabotaging his government.
The brutality on display in Lahore was such that in their next clash with Pakistan Awami Tehreek and Minhaj ul Quran hooligans outside the Rawalpindi airport on Monday, the police were ordered to execute their duties with a level of restraint that resulted in their becoming sacrificial lambs to the barbarous attacks of the PAT goons. Over 70 policemen are reported injured, many seriously. Of the 27 persons taken to PIMS, 26 were policemen, several with head injuries and broken bones. The question begging to be asked is: can Punjab police not carry out effective policing without killing people? Can it not contain even a bunch of hooligans without either killing them or nearly getting killed themselves? Does this force lack protective equipment, or appropriate techniques, or simply professional training with standard operating procedures? Institutions have SOPs, which clearly the police in this case does not seem to have. Even in Lahore, common sense SOPs might have consisted of calling for tear gas, water cannons etc., instead of firing into the crowd. The manner in which one of the critical departments of the Punjab government has been exposed for not having even a semblance of being an institution, calls for change at the top to make way for someone who can and will build a professional institution to replace the Gullu Butt Force. Clearly, when the war comes to Lahore we want our police to be fighting the fight, neither racing off with looted Pepsi bottles nor getting whacked to pulp.
But ‘Operation Barricade’ was not the half of it. It appears the Federal government is in competition with the Punjab government on all scores. Why stay behind? What little brother can do, big brother can do better, was perhaps what the federal government wanted to demonstrate on Monday, when it first caused the Emirates flight EK 612 to circle for nearly an hour over Benazir Bhutto International Airport, and then ordered it to divert to Lahore. Why? Why is this government hell bent on making a complete relative of the horse of itself? It is said our federal railways minister sat up and ran out with this ‘Eureka’, with the difference of course that his Eureka was profoundly witless. Once again, the charlatan held court from the ‘hijacked’ plane, with government looking its stupidest ever and Emirates Airlines and Dubai government threatening legal action to get their aircraft back from a country that allows clowns to take other peoples’ airplanes hostage. But to the Prime Minister, one would simply say: fire your kitchen cabinet. If you need good advice that will keep you in office for the rest of your term, call no one except President Zardari.

 The writer is a human rights worker and freelance columnist.

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