View from Pakistan; 'Baby of the system'

In a country whose respected elders are in a hurry to marry off girls of any age, a nine-month-old boy landing in the dock for his suspected ability to launch a deadly attack on government officials would suggest some kind of progress in the chosen direction.

Sarcasm in many instances is the only outlet available, and thus there was a chance for the system to complete the trial before the undertrial grew too old. It is usual for a trial to continue for so long that by the end of it a suspect can only generate sympathy rather than be subjected to public wishes about the punishment of the guilty. Musa Khan offered a break from tradition.

There were, of course, many other reasons to believe why this could well have happened in Pakistan. For starters, there has been, periodically, news reporting attempts at an early nipping of the evil in the bud, of the variety the case of the nine-month-old appears to be. Some four years ago, for instance, there was a report in some papers from Multan and Muzaffargarh, regarding a two-year-old boy who was allegedly mature enough to go around stealing gold and cash. That moment to reflect on a “shambolic criminal justice system” in Pakistan somehow passed unnoticed — a country “where underpaid and ill-trained police can be quick to lay false charges that can ensnare innocents in years of legal troubles”.

For someone who has to live it day in and day out, it is horrifying that these descriptions still fit the country after all these avowed improvements in police, pay-wise especially. The pays were raised substantially and now they have to be raised further and then further until the police learn to pick people of the right age and disposition to fill their registers and their lockups.

This is a very tempting subject as always — hitting out against the police, one character that is forever willing and often straining and protruding under the uniform to take everyone’s blame to some others’ relief. There is a problem, however. The details of the world famous nine-month-old accused are as yet not so clear to enable formation of the usual opinion. The case is in court and the truth will take time to come out as it always does.

What we know for now is that in February, the Sui gas people had raided a locality in Lahore whose residents had not paid their gas bills. There was a riot which led to the gas company filing a case with the local police station. It seems that it was an FIR that had lumped together some names with their unnamed accomplices, which is not unusual in Pakistan. Among those mentioned in the report was the toddler, the defence lawyers maintained in court earlier this month.

Nine-month-old Musa Khan’s grandfather has “rejected police claims reported in local media that the family had produced ‘the wrong baby’ before the court in order to undermine the police case”. The police say the inclusion of the toddler was a mistake — one of them telling a newspaper reporter that the error was not dissimilar to when the media sometimes gets the identity of people wrong.

Lawyers have been heard saying that there are no provisions in the country to try anyone under the age of seven, but obviously, greater closer legal scrutiny is needed to get to the bottom of this.

The hurried furnishing of the case as proof of incompetence of the police force and failure of the criminal justice system, while it has its merits, is too innocent an act at this moment to inspire hopes of it being some kind of a catalyst. It is innocent since it excludes from the probe many others who may have contributed to this latest example of our failure and our ability to be the laughing stock of everyone around.

Pending legal inquiry the case definitely offers immense possibilities for analysis and targeting the system and those who man it, and that includes the police and implicates so many others — for instance, the gas company officials. The latter were required to name the suspects they had allegedly been threatened by that February day for the police to register the FIR.

Ask around, and there will be so many complaining about how careless the raiding government officials routinely are in getting cases registered against suspects. They are wont to lump people in an area or in a building together without taking the trouble of identifying who exactly among the residents they are actually accusing of breaking the law.

This, people say, is a usual problem in cases where the complaint is lodged by a government raiding team — gas company officials or officials out to control the spread of dengue, for instance. They have this tendency to lump them all together for an investigation. And not all those people who mistakenly appear in an FIR have the innocence and the appeal of a nine-month-old to escape the situation easily.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore

By arrangement with Dawn