license to kill
Karachi’s posh areas which remain immune to violence that devours scores of innocent lives every now and then do have a grotesque aspect of their relatively calm streets where big egos and arrogance eat human lives.
Here we don’t see heartless murderers, known only as target killers, unleashing death and then vanishing into the dingy streets of the city which is now home to at least 20 million people rather children of some influential people calling the shots with ultimate impunity.
We had hardly emerged from the tragedy that left 25-year old Shahzeb dead by a feudal’s arrogant son, Shahrukh Jatoi, a son of top police officer settles scores with a guy by leaving him dead after breaking into his residence this time around.
The news left me flabbergasted that a teen has killed another in DHA over some petty issue, which is still unknown due to some unknown reasons, while a poor policeman also lost his life in the ‘private’ exchange of fire that took place at the deceased’s bungalow.
The ‘killer’ who is 18-year-old along with five police guards of his father had ambushed the victim at his bungalow while he was preparing for his A-level exam. The attacker student also got injured in retaliatory fire by the victim’s guards.
Alright…we are at logger heads with each other…I don’t agree with you and so, you deserve a bullet! Is this the kind of moral training these kids are getting at home?
Or they think this is probably the best solution to every problem…even to a petty matter. Or they believe they will escape the claws of the law by committing such heinous crime.
Whatever it is, Shahzeb’s case has something that answers the question to some extent.
The entire nation was waiting for the justice to be served after vigorous campaign on social media and then main stream media for DSP Aurangzeb Khan’s slain young son.
And finally after six months it was served in the form of death sentence to the two key accused.
Sharukh Jatoi, the person at the centre of the episode chanted “Hum Jeet Gaye” and flashed victory sign to the TV cameras shortly after coming out of court room following his death sentence along with his aide.
The victory sign and “We won” was the answer to the abovementioned questions. His smile, mocking the nation, was due to the lacunas in the existing laws or their implementation. Though he is still behind the bars after being pardoned by the parents of the deceased as the court upheld his sentence, we doubt the accused will ever get punishment for his crime.
This abuse of power didn’t end here. Had speedy justice put fear of God in children of the powerful and the rich, another equally brutal murder of Hamza would not have happened following Shahzeb’s killing.
Hamza Ahmed, an O-level student, was killed allegedly by the guard of a fellow student, Shoaib Naveed who was the son of a businessman, outside a restaurant in DHA Phase-II on April 27 over a petty issue.
Provided the impunity with which such murders are committed, the already grim situation is likely to prevail, but the questions that batter my mind are… where are we heading now? Have they got the license to kill and while all this is happening, what are our lawmakers and law enforcers doing to curb the existence of such episodes, as most of them hint towards their own houses?
The police who have been running a campaign against illegal weapons in other parts of the city will ever dare to check the easy availability of heavy weapons to the kids of law enforcers.
Will our lawmakers, who are quick to introduce laws, ever bother to get them equally implemented for the poor and the rich?
Shahzeb, Hamza and Suleman Lashari’s murders are different to some extent from the other murders in the city as they point to the confidence of young murderers who draw it from the money, power and vulnerability of our law.
This nauseating mindset and trend need to be reversed at once. And it is not just the government, the laws or police that is responsible to get this job done. It is the society at large that must come forward to do what it must to set its course right.