Roman Gladiators
By Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)
Rawalpindi, Pakistan


PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar, the personal media spokesman of Life Chairperson Benazir Bhutto, spearheaded the debate in the Senate on the ‘manhandling’ of six JI workers in Karachi by the Rangers while Senator Raza Rabbani dubbed the Rangers as the Roman Gladiators. (The News 4 June 2005)

Probably both know that the maintenance of law and order is essentially a police function. Rangers are called in only when the situation gets out of police control. Rangers being Civil Armed Forces take their orders directly from the civil government
of the province they are deployed in. Task assigned is to ensure that the protestors or the mobsters do not get out of control or cause any danger to life or property etc. Now, if the police could do that that why call in the soldiers? Now, my dear Senators, action taken by the troops has to be exemplary and effective to act as a deterrent for the others. If it is taken as a half-hearted measure the protestors will get used to it over a period of time and the troops will fare no better than the police. If and when, God forbid, that stage comes there will be anarchy in the country. No one will be able to maintain the law and order and the havoc wreaked by such a situation should not be difficult for any one to visualise.
Senator Babar is an excellent orator with very good command of the language. However, his understanding in equating the incidence to those of at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prison leave much to be desired of him. If one sees the pictures of the incident one would find quite a few soldiers with beard and, they are good Muslims too. But they also know that they have a duty to perform. They know that if these so called highly religious Muslims are left to themselves they will put to torch six young innocent Muslim workers in a KFC outlet, knowing fully well that the workers had been trapped inside the flaming restaurant and yet these Muslim zealots would not let them come out. Is this what Islam teaches? Has any of these so-called religious leaders condemned their this action? Has any one of these callous and bigoted religious leaders gone to offer some solace to the mourners of these six innocent young bread earners of their families?
Dear Honourable Senators, either let these 'Muslims' kill each other, burn each other, kidnap each other, or let the “Roman Gladiators” throw them down on the ground blindfolded and save the innocent lives of the few hapless. The choice is entirely yours.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Editor: Akhtar M. Faruqui
© 2004 pakistanlink.com . All Rights Reserved.