Concern over religious militancy, lawlessness

April 12, 2007
By Sohail Sangi
SINDHI PRESS DIGESTTHE major issues covered by the Sindhi press during the past week were the Lal Masjid standoff in Islamabad and the Saarc summit held in New Delhi.Dailies Koshish and Tameer-i-Sindh, expressing alarm over the fanaticism of Taliban votaries in the federal capital, say if no action is taken against the militants, they will get bold enough to spread their net.“The extremists would then turn the country into a laboratory for trying out their obscurantist ideas,” the Koshish warns.Dailies Ibrat, Awami Awaz and Kawish have editorialised on the Saarc conference. The Awami Awaz praises the Saarc secretariat for conceding that the organisation has failed to achieve its objective of resolution of major issues.The daily says `it is time to analyse the failure’, suggesting that the host country (of the summit) should be made responsible for the implementation of the decisions..The Kawish says the member countries will have to change their attitude for resolution of major disputes.The newspaper also deals with the high incidence of kidnapping for ransom in Sindh, saying the recent wave shows that outlaws enjoy total impunity in the province.The paper cites reports that police are negotiating a deal for the recovery of Omparkash, a boy from Jacobabad, while the case of Abdul Razaq got entangled in a dispute of jurisdiction between two police stations. “It seems that a handful of outlaws are stronger than the state.”The Kawish opposes any deal with the criminals as it entails the grant of `illegal facilities and privileges’. At the same time, the newspaper opposes police operation against dacoits as it has `never yielded results’.Daily Awami Awaz condemns the baton-charge on students of Karachi’s Urdu University, saying that students were agitating merely for the holding of classes regularly. “Education is the right of every citizen and to protest for it is a fundamental right, too.Therefore the use of violence against students is unjustifiable.”The paper writes that the Urdu University incident seems to be of a pattern as `lawyers, journalists and teachers have been facing the wrath of the state recently’.The Awami Awaz feels that there are some police officers who think protests disturb the rulers. “To save their own skin, they feel no compunction in roughing up innocent people agitating for their rights.”The Ibrat, praising the activism shown by the judiciary of late, urges it to reopen the Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto case. The paper says this action would allow the state machinery to do some `soul-searching and self-accountability’.The Tameer-i-Sindh terms unrealistic President Pervez Musharaf’s statement about missing activists. The president said in a public meeting last week that almost all the missing persons had gone to Afghanistan for jihad.The paper says these peoplehad been picked up by secret agencies, and were not produced before any court of law. “It is better to avoid such assertions and produce the missing people in court,” the Tameer counsels the president.