Business Recorder Editorial March 12, 2020

Terrorism still simmering

The martyrdom of Colonel Mujeebur Rehman at the hands of terrorists should give us pause for thought. The intelligence-based operation by the security forces in Granni Sheikhan area of D I Khan was based on information that some terrorists were hiding in that area while preparing attacks on the security forces and police. The terrorists opened fire when they were surrounded. In the exchange of fire, Colonel Rehman and two terrorists were killed. ISPR described the unnamed terrorists as high value targets. It also informed that weapons and ammunition were seized from the terrorists’ hideout. The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the killing of Colonel Rehman, and their spokesman, Mohammad Khorasani, said army troops had raided their position on March 9, 2020. Prime Minister Imran Khan praised the martyred officer and all those from the military and security forces who had made sacrifices to free Pakistan of terrorism. While we condole the death of a brave officer and appreciate the successes of the military and security forces against the terrorists who at one stage had made Pakistan a byword for terrorism, it remains a painful task to remind ourselves how we got here.

Pakistan got embroiled in the Afghan inferno about four decades ago. Pakistan-Afghanistan relations had been rocky since Independence in 1947 because of the latter’s irredentist claims to the Pashtun areas of Pakistan. In fact Afghanistan’s was the sole vote against Pakistan’s admission to the UN. The differences simmered until 1973, when events in Pakistan and Afghanistan took a new turn. In Pakistan, conflict in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and a nationalist insurgency in Balochistan followed the then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s dismissal of the National Awami Party-Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam coalition government in Balochistan. A similar coalition government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa resigned in protest. While these events were unfolding here, Sardar Daud overthrew the monarchy and declared Afghanistan a republic. Bhutto feared the Pashtun nationalist Sardar Daud would fish in the troubled waters of Pakistan’s Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. That was the embryonic beginning of the Afghan mujahideen, initially consisting of Islamist student leaders and professors of Kabul University who fled to Pakistan to escape Daud’s repression. By 1978, when Daud was assassinated in a Communist coup, Pakistan had raised the stakes through supporting the Afghan mujahideen. Afghanistan was rocked in that period by internal conflict and power struggles within the ruling People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). The turmoil led to the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in 1979. With the West joining in, Pakistan became the staging post for the mujahideen struggle while hosting millions of Afghan refugees. The Soviets departed in 1989 but Afghanistan’s troubles and internal strife continued until the Taliban seized total power in 1996. Pakistan’s support to the Taliban had unforeseen consequences. A by-product of that engagement emerged in 2007 in the shape of the TTP. During Musharraf’s regime, these local extremist groups were both attacked and cajoled, a posture that ended up falling between two stools: annihilation and appeasement. By December 2014 when terrorists carried out the massacre of students and teachers in the Army Public School Peshawar, sufficient political will was finally gathered to deal with the terrorists in an effective and meaningful manner. While the military’s operations broke the back of the terrorist resistance, they could not prevent the survivors fleeing to the relative safety of the poorly policed border areas of Afghanistan. Despite these setbacks, the fear amongst informed observers was that from the safety of their bases across the border, the TTP would look to resurrect itself inside Pakistan through sleeper cells either left behind or newly created to carry on the terrorist campaign. This is the context for the D I Khan operation referred to above. The consequences of flirting with extremist forces for strategic reasons may have triggered the birth of home-grown terrorist groups, but it is our armed forces and security forces that are having to ‘mop up’ the remains of a much depleted terrorism threat.

Business Recorder Column March 10, 2020

Women on the march

Rashed Rahman

Despite the threats and attempted intimidation by the retrogressive forces in politics and society, the Aurat(Women’s) march was held on March 8, 2020 in many cities throughout Pakistan. Rallies were held in Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Multan, Peshawar, Quetta, Sukkur and many other smaller towns. An aroused, conscious and brave women’s community is blazing a new path in Pakistan’s retrograde, backward, misogynistic and patriarchal society where women are denied their human, gender, social, economic and political rights.

The reactionary patriarchal and misogynistic forces that attempted to paint the Auratmarch in lurid colours as something bordering on vulgarity, moral laxity or against our religion, either deliberately or out of ignorance twisted their interpretation of slogans such as “Mera jism, meri marzi”(My body, my right) in this direction. In actual fact the slogan speaks to the parlous state of safety of women from harassment, sexual assault and rape, etc. It also envisages the agency of women in deciding about their life choices, e.g. whom and when to marry, to have children or not, etc.

The reaction from the Jamaat-i-Islami (which held counter-rallies under the rubric Haya– modesty – march), accompanied by the burqa-clad girls and women of Jamia Hafza and Lal Masjid, chose to vent their hatred of the Auratmarch in Islamabad by allegedly pelting it with rocks and batons when the two rallies were separated by a mere police tenting barrier. At least one Auratmarch participant was injured. Thankfully, the police intervened to quell the disturbance.

Elsewhere, the rallies went off peacefully and without any adverse incident. However, the strict security measures by the police to pre-empt any trouble emanating from the wild threats flung at the Auratmarch in recent days had the effect of dampening the spirit of this year’s march in the ‘absence’ of the public. Roads and venues were sealed off, resulting in the marchers not being able to interact with the general public. An empirical observation that the numbers in this year’s march did not match those of last year can be explained by reference to the threats hurled at it in the build-up to the day, and perhaps the lingering shadow of the coronavirus affliction that militates against crowds.

It is interesting to note the respective attitudes towards the Auratmarch of the mainstream political parties. The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf gave its support, but not before Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan had resurrected General Ziaul Haq’s retrogressive slogan ‘Chadar or char diwari’(Veil and sanctity of home)  and condemned unnamed NGOs as working for values repugnant to Islam and our traditional culture. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz too supported the march with reservations about some of its slogans and demands that in their view transgressed the acceptable according to our social norms. The Pakistan People’s Party on the other hand unequivocally and without ifs and buts came out in support of the march.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman had exposed his mindset on the eve of the march by threatening to stop it by force, but fortunately his bluster was exposed on the day as just hot air, since his party, the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl did not move a muscle. The Jamaat-i-Islami showed its hate-filled intimidatory nature in Islamabad, but was quickly defanged. The PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has asked for action by the authorities against the goons who attacked the Islamabad rally.

What the opponents of the Auratmarch and women’s mobilisation miss, are ignorant of, or steeped in received patriarchal and misogynistic ideas is the origins of women’s subjugation historically, the factors that contributed to this outcome in antiquity, and how it has played out throughout history ever since. Early human society was not stratified into classes or dominant-subservient groups. Primitive means of production (including land) were collectively owned and used. The turn came when private property arose. This had a number of consequences. Monogamy came to be established because the owner of private property wanted to make sure his true progeny (males only, by the way) inherited his wealth. In the institution of monogamous marriage, women were treated like little else than chattel.

Through the long unwinding course of human history, this was the ‘model’ for human society. It was only in modern times that women began to stir against the deprivation of their rights, enjoyed by men as a matter of entitlement. As examples of how things changed, one can quote in the political sphere the gaining of adult franchise for women, only conceded after protracted struggle and in an uneven sequence globally, largely in the 20^thcentury. Now the Auratmarch is demanding more. The cry is equality in the political, economic, social and personal domain.

This is not as outlandish as our Neanderthal misogynists attempt to portray it. If our religion Islam is studied in its true spirit, it was nothing less than a revolution in social norms, especially vis-à-vis extending rights to and empowering women. But our monopolists of religion (the religious parties) forget this fundamental aspect of Islam and justify patriarchal and misogynistic control and repression of women by falling back on ‘traditional’ values, which as explained above, stem from the great counter-revolution in gender equality encountered in the wake of the emergence of private property.

The Auratmarch and women’s mobilisation in the third year of its holding is now a fact of life and deserves our unstinting support. The only question remaining is to assess whether the demands of the women’s movement can be achieved solely by a women’s platform (which by the way has rightly won the admiration and support of all progressive and liberal elements in our society) or whether such a platform also needs to strategise a wider and more effective movement of resistance that can feed into the kind of change needed that would not be less than a social revolution.

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Business Recorder Editorial March 10, 2020

Unabated slaughter

The hopes for peace raised as a result of the US-Taliban withdrawal deal in Doha have been dealt an early and perhaps fatal blow. While attacks against the Afghan security forces all over Afghanistan and a US air strike in response in recent days indicated the difficulties inherent in the situation on the ground, the slaughter of Shia Hazaras at a rally in Kabul to commemorate Abdul Ali Mazari yielded 29-32 dead and 58-61 wounded. This is the deadliest assault since the Doha deal. While the Taliban have denied responsibility, Islamic State (IS) has claimed it. The glaring security lapse at a rally to commemorate a Hazara leader kidnapped and killed by the Taliban some years ago indicates the fraught conditions of ensuring a reduction of violence that is supposed to lubricate the withdrawal of foreign forces. The lapse is even more concerning because last year the same rally was subjected to a mortar barrage, killing at least 11 people. Reports say two gunmen fired on the rally with machine guns and lobbed grenades on the crowd from a nearby under construction site. Although the two attackers were eventually killed by security forces, the failure to secure the site of the rally must stand out as a serious security failure. President Ashraf Ghani condemned the attack as a “crime against humanity”. Pakistan too condemned it while hoping the peace process would continue. Fortunately, Abdullah Abdullah was at the rally but escaped unharmed. The withdrawal deal hinges, amongst other things, on the Taliban not only reducing their own attacks but controlling al Qaeda and IS otherwise the US military may be forced to remain. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tried to peddle a ‘glass half-full’ theory by arguing violence has come down overall, but this is unlikely to being any comfort to the Hazara victims of this atrocity. IS in particular is known to be targeting Shias on a sectarian basis and may not be amenable to Taliban control. As if all this were not enough, the intra-Afghan talks scheduled for March 10, 2020 seem stalled over the Afghan government’s refusal to go along with the prisoner swap agreed between the US and the Taliban in Doha.

US President Donald Trump is not known for pulling his punches. In a tacit admission of Washington’s defeat in the ‘graveyard of empires’, a defeat perceptive analysts had predicted as long ago as 2001, Mr Trump admitted in answer to a reporter that a total Taliban victory after the US and NATO troops withdraw could not be ruled out. The basic flaw in the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan over the last 19 years was the notion that outside occupying forces could construct a viable state able to defend itself against the insurgents. To add to what looks increasingly like the Afghan government being thrown to the wolves, Washington failed to accord any weight or status to the Afghan government during the parleys, and seemingly expected decisions taken over its head (e.g. the prisoner swap) to be swallowed without demur. The prisoner issue seemed the only card left in Ashraf Ghani’s deck, and he has duly played it to remind not only the Taliban, but his supposed ally the US that it cannot simply be ridden roughshod over. Although President Trump is right in arguing that the US cannot stay another 20 years on top of the past 19 years to hold the Afghan government’s hand, realistically speaking the ability of President Ashraf Ghani’s government to resist the looming Taliban thrust for exclusive power is open to serious question. The US, after its fundamental mistake of invading and occupying Afghanistan in 2001 rather than seeking other means of combating al Qaeda and bringing the Taliban to heel, now seems set to ‘cut and run’ without a thought for what may follow. The Afghan Taliban’s past (and suspected continuing) ties with groups al Qaeda and IS are likely to compound the failure of the deal, but Pakistan must also be alert to the possibility of the Afghan Taliban favouring a revival of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan from its safe havens across the border on Afghan soil

Business Recorder Editorial March 7, 2020

Nawaz Sharif’s repatriation

The government of Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf has taken the extraordinary step of writing a letter to the UK authorities for the repatriation of former PM Nawaz Sharif who is in London for medical treatment. The government has alleged that Nawaz Sharif has violated the eight-week bail extended to him for the purpose by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) by staying on in London for the last more than three months. Special Assistant to the PM on Information Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan told a press conference on March 3, 2020 after briefing the federal cabinet on the issue that a medical board formed by the Punjab government on the directives of the IHC that had allowed Nawaz Sharif to leave for London for treatment has now reached the conclusion that Nawaz Sharif is quite well and therefore able to return since he has not been admitted to any hospital and has been seen frequenting restaurants in London. She added that the Punjab government has written a number of letters to Nawaz Sharif seeking his latest medical reports but instead he had submitted a certificate that is not acceptable to the medical board to ascertain his health condition. Not surprisingly, PML-N president and leader of the opposition Shahbaz Sharif, who accompanied his brother to London, reacted bitterly to the government’s move. First and foremost, Shahbaz argued, the government did not have the authority to write such a letter. The government’s haste, he added, betrayed its criminal intent. He underlined that attempting to stop Nawaz Sharif’s treatment is tantamount to murdering him. Last but not least, he accused PM Imran Khan of acting out of personal enmity and political vengeance.

While the exchange outlined above comes as no surprise, the issue needs to be approached calmly, rationally, and according to the law. The IHC had granted an eight-week bail to Nawaz Sharif for medical treatment in London when local doctors seemed unable to control his complicated afflictions. The court had also directed that Nawaz Sharif could seek an extension in his bail by applying to the Punjab government. Now any rational and responsible government has to be guided in its decisions and actions by the law and rules. If the Punjab government decided not to accede to Nawaz Sharif’s bail extension, this had to be based on some facts and evidence. However, according to Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan, the medical board set up by the Punjab government has not received Nawaz Sharif’s latest medical reports but a medical certificate instead, which, according to Dr Awan herself, does not allow the medical board to assess the state of his health. In that case, how can the medical board declare that Nawaz Sharif is now hale and hearty, based on the thin argument of being seen in London’s restaurants? At best, the government should have approached the IHC to direct Nawaz Sharif to supply his latest medical reports instead of jumping to the conclusion that he was well and able to return. Second, an approach to the IHC regarding the issue of allowing or rejecting an extension in Nawaz Sharif’s bail period may have been the correct and wisest course. Last but not least, does the government not know that there is no extradition treaty between Pakistan and the UK? If by some stretch of the imagination the UK government were to move to repatriate Nawaz Sharif, this would be open to challenge in the British courts. It may be recalled that the UK government, despite its desire to extradite Julian Assange to the US to face serious charges, has been unable to do so despite ‘capturing’ him from the Ecuador embassy in London because the issue is now in court. One would have thought there were bigger and more important issues for our government to focus on, not the least of which is the threatened fallout of the global coronavirus epidemic on our already faltering economy. Instead the concentration on pursuing Nawaz Sharif does arouse suspicions of political victimisation.

Business Recorder Editorial March 5, 2020

A short-lived ‘peace deal’

Before the ink had even dried on the US-Taliban peace deal struck in Doha, Qatar, the other day, the Taliban started their attacks on the Afghan security forces and civilians, ending the brief ‘reduction of violence’ partial truce. On March 2, 2020, a bomb blast at a football match in Khost killed three brothers and wounded 11 people. The same day, an attack on an Afghan army post in Badghis killed at least one soldier. The Taliban have declared they will not attack foreign troops but will target Afghan government forces. Adding to the perception that the peace deal may unravel even before anyone expected are the diametrically opposed positions of the Afghan government and the Taliban. The former says the prisoners swap that forms part of the Doha deal could be discussed at the intra-Afghan talks while the Taliban have categorically rejected such talks until their prisoners are released. All that remains to watch now is whether, in the face of Taliban attacks on the Afghan forces, President Ghani will continue to adhere to the partial truce till the intra-Afghan talks. Right now, all bets on this are off. While innumerable obstacles existed and have been pointed out by informed analysts regarding the prospects of the deal, the real sticking point that has come to the fore is the refusal of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners in exchange for 1,000 captives held by the militant group. Ghani argues that the Afghanistan government did not commit to the prisoner swap but left open the possibility that the issue could be discussed in Oslo at the intra-Afghan talks. But with the Taliban putting the prisoner release as a prior condition for those talks, their future too is under a cloud. Even the venue is now contested, with the Taliban saying they are discussing where the talks should be held (implying Oslo is no longer the settled location).

With the Taliban publicly celebrating the Doha deal as their victory over the US, Washington’s position will come under stress in trying to keep the Taliban to their commitments. Seemingly irrevocably focused on bringing its troops home, the US may not have sufficient leverage to prevent the accord from unravelling. The prisoners swap conundrum has underlined a fatal flaw in the US’s approach to its Afghan endgame. Keeping the Afghan government sidelined while Washington virtually handed the Taliban their main demand of the withdrawal of foreign forces on a platter is a strategy whose chickens now appear to be coming home to roost. The Afghan government and other anti-Taliban forces may not be in a position to assert it, but the deal has forced them to try and salvage some space for their continued existence in power. Whether this can be achieved by carving out a share in power for the triumphant Taliban remains a moot point. In an eerie replay, the US seems to be making the same mistake as in Vietnam when it virtually abandoned its propped up South Vietnamese regime, only to see it crumble within two years of the Geneva Accords of 1973. Withdrawing from an unwinnable war makes sense, but historians and others will have much to mull over when examining the confused and contradictory aims and objectives of Washington over the long course of 19 years on Afghanistan’s battlefields. What should worry Pakistan is the possible fallout of a breakdown of the peace deal and reversion to war in its neighbouring country. Not only could this pose some old and some new security concerns, an Afghanistan continuing in turmoil would negate the possibility of the Afghan refugees returning to their homeland. All the hopes of peace ushering in new economic opportunities as a result of a peaceful Afghanistan providing a connectivity gateway to Central Asia and beyond could disappear in a puff of smoke. The plans for the CASA-1000 transmission line and the TAPI gas pipeline too could recede further into the distance. The stakes for the people of Afghanistan are so high as to answer to the description of a life and death matter, but Pakistan may not be able to escape the fallout of renewed and continuing hostilities between the Afghan factions.

Business Recorder Column March 3, 2020

An expedient deal

Rashed Rahman

The signing of the ‘peace’ deal between the US and the Taliban in Doha on February 29, 2020 has been touted by Pakistan as proof of its role as a peace maker and facilitator in ending the 19-year-old Afghan conflict. But even the quietly triumphant note in Pakistani statements cannot ignore the difficulties still remaining in implementing the terms of the agreement. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, fresh from his ‘victory’ in Doha, had to concede it would not be a “smooth affair” but then dumped any adverse possibilities in the lap of unnamed “spoilers”. In a press conference on March 1, 2020 after his return to Islamabad, Qureshi revealed he had suggested a number of steps to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (who, reports say, attended the Doha signing ceremony reluctantly and only as a ‘guest) to build on the “great progress” reflected in the deal. Some of these steps included a prisoners swap, the start in timely fashion of the intra-Afghan dialogue, and reconstruction aid to an Afghanistan battered by almost half a century of wars to provide the conditions for a return of the Afghan refugees.

On the face of it the suggestions appear good, but there are attendant uncertainties that no side is willing to admit publicly. First and foremost, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has categorically rejected a prisoner swap of 5,000 Taliban prisoners with 1,000 held by the Taliban. On March 1, 2020, President Ghani made clear the Afghan government had made no such commitment. That is obvious since the Afghan government has studiously, and perhaps deliberately, been kept out of the Doha talks process from the very beginning. Although Ghani committed to honouring a partial truce that has seen a reduction of violence, he faces internal disquiet over the deal in which the government and other Afghan anti-Taliban forces were conspicuous by their absence. Ghani did leave the door ajar a crack by adding the prisoners swap issue could be discussed as part of the intra-Afghan dialogue due to start in Oslo on March 10, 2020. While the run of comment portrays the deal as a critical first step to peace, many Afghans see it as little more than a dressed-up US surrender that will ultimately see the Taliban return to exclusive power.

The intra-Afghan dialogue is still uncertain to start as scheduled since the make-up of the Afghan government delegation is still undecided. On the one hand, Ghani and his rival for the presidency, Abdullah Abdullah, are still at loggerheads over the controversial 2019 presidential election that has been officially declared as having been won by Ghani but which Abdullah hotly contests, going so far as to threaten the formation of a parallel government, in a weary replay of the previous presidential election that was only settled by a surface power-sharing arrangement negotiated by the US. On the other hand, who from civil society and other groups will form part of the government/anti-Taliban delegation is still not known. Ghani would prefer loyalists for the latter slot but that could produce a credibility issue and objections from the Taliban, who have consistently refused so far to meet the Afghan government they have dismissed in the past as a ‘US puppet’.

President Ashraf Ghani has outlined the key issues attending the Oslo talks. Amongst these he has listed the Taliban’s ties with Pakistan, accused of harbouring them since 2001, as well as their ties to terrorist groups (particularly al Qaeda) and drug cartels. It bears recalling that while in power the Taliban strictly banned drugs, but in opposition they were far from averse to taking advantage of the drug trade to finance their insurgency. President Ghani would also like clarification as to what would be the place in the new dispensation for the existing Afghan security forces and civil administration. For all this, Ghani’s desire for a verifiable mechanism to monitor and ensure compliance by the Taliban begs a whole host of questions about how this is possible and who will take responsibility for it. So far, the only taker for this role is the US, which is hardly a disinterested party and, given US President Donald Trump’s undisguised desire to withdraw US troops as soon as possible so he can boost his chances of re-election, may turn a blind eye to violations of the Taliban’s commitments in order not to disrupt the troop withdrawal. The UN may have been a better choice but there appears no consensus or will there to take on this sticky task.

Even if the above roadblocks get sorted out in time and the Oslo talks begin, despite the Taliban’s agreeing to an “inclusive government” of which they would be a part, the exact terms of such a power sharing arrangement promise difficult and testy exchanges. Afghans generally are torn between a desire for peace after decades of conflict and dread of the Taliban’s return to power, given their hardline track record in power 1986-2001. Women in particular fear the Taliban have not changed their medieval mindset and may, once they are in control, reintroduce the restrictions on women’s education and work that made life for Afghanistan’s women a living hell.

Potential external ‘spoilers’ may include Iran, which has categorically dismissed the deal, arguing the Us had no right to take decisions about Afghanistan’s future, and may be just manoeuvring to extend its presence in Afghanistan that is the US’s valuable listening post for the volatile region. It should not be forgotten that Iran too hosts a large numbers of Afghan refugees, a potential source of trouble for any future Taliban government.

Those with memories of the US withdrawal from the Vietnam War may be unsettled at the similarity of the two processes, despite differences of time and context. Then US President Richard Nixon, after winning the 1972 elections, agreed to withdraw US troops from that unwinnable war that took a heavy and bloody toll of the Vietnamese people. Within two years of the signing of the Geneva Accords, the world was treated to the spectacle of desperate people clinging to US military helicopters trying to get away before the Vietnamese people’s forces arrived in Saigon. In that negotiation too Washington did not include its ‘puppet’ South Vietnamese government, which crumbled before the determined assault of the patriotic and revolutionary Vietnamese resistance forces.

Of course the differences too are glaring. The Vietnam War was part of the US’s war on communism. The Afghan conflict has pitched the US behemoth against an extremist religious movement that has fought it to a standstill. But the end result may not be very different, with the triumphant Taliban sealing their victory with exclusive power once the actual and potential threat from the US abates and vanishes. No one in their right mind expects the US to be able to muster the political will to return to combat in Afghanistan whatever the Taliban’s violations of the ‘solemn’ agreement signed in Doha.

The Taliban’s ultimate triumph therefore seems only a matter of time. Will that outcome fulfil the hopes of Pakistan that peace and prosperity will follow? The jury is still out as it is contingent on whether and to what extent the anti-Taliban forces resist the onslaught. A new civil war cannot be ruled out. What effect continuing conflict will have on Pakistan’s security also is up in the air since the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan is still sitting across the border on Afghan soil, poised to strike.

Welcome to one more expedient deal by Washington, with an uncertain and potentially worrying fallout.

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Business Recorder Editorial March 3, 2020

Disasters waiting to happen

The train-bus collision between Khairpur and Rohri on February 28, 2020 killed 19 people and injured more than 30 (one report quoted a figure for the injured at 40-45). The death toll is likely to rise if some of the critically injured submit to their injuries. The crash took place at an unmanned railway level crossing. Tragic as the incident is, it should come as no surprise. There are almost 2,500 such railway level crossings that are unmanned, unsupervised and have no barriers for road traffic when a train is approaching. This accident is not the first of its kind and, given the neglect of what is a public safety issue, unlikely to be the last. Unfortunately Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid has, as is his habit, refused to take even moral responsibility for the accident, shifting the blame for unmanned, unsupervised, ungated level crossings onto the provincial governments. To add salt to the wounds, he demanded the provinces should pay the railways for the cost of fixing the problem countrywide. One may be forgiven for thinking that the cost of ensuring proper management of railway level crossings would not be too high. If need be, the federal and provincial governments could put their heads together in a collaborative effort to eliminate the problem, which is nothing less than more disasters waiting to happen. Reports say the bus driver’s negligence is to blame. That is certainly true as far as not taking account of the onrushing train is concerned. But given our driving habits, this too is not something new or out of the ordinary. One can quote many such accidents from the past.

Reportedly, 2019 proved the worst year for the railways in terms of accidents, loss of life and injuries. In June 2019, three people were killed when a passenger train, the Jinnah Express, hit a freight car near Hyderabad. Unlike in other democratic dispensations where the minister concerned accepts moral responsibility and resigns, Sheikh Rashid decided to cling to his office and merely apologised to the country. In October 2019, one of the most horrifying accidents in our history occurred when three carriages of the Tezgam Express travelling from Karachi to Rawalpindi caught fire near Rahim Yar Khan. More than 70 people lost their lives in the inferno. Then too Sheikh Rashid tried to pass the buck by claiming the fire broke out because some passengers were using a gas cylinder to cook food on board the train. However, so far this remains just a claim since no final report on the incident has so far seen the light of day amidst speculations the fire was in fact caused by a short circuit in the carriages involved. When the Supreme Court was hearing a case about the losses being incurred by Pakistan Railways, Sheikh Rashid was grilled by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Gulzar Ahmed regarding the running of the organisation. The CJP asked Sheikh Rashid to brief the court about the October 2019 accident. CJP Gulzar Ahmed admonished the minister, saying he should have resigned (as is the norm in democracies). Instead, the redoubtable Sheikh replied that 75 people had been dismissed after the tragedy. But the CJP was having none of this and told him sternly that the other day he had told the court that two people were fired. The CJP asked the minister when he would dismiss high-ranking officers instead of low-grade employees. He went on to paint the minister’s organisation as a 19^thcentury railways in which there is little else but plunder. Sheikh Rashid had better take some time off from his politicking (including frequent appearances on television) to concentrate on his ministry’s travails.