Tazeen Akhtar
The killing of 12 Police personnel in Rahim Yar Khan district of South Punjab in an ambush by the bandits of the Kaccha (riverine) area, notorious for the bandit gangs, has further added to already prevailing concerns among the public that the state power is used on the poor only and not on the powerful.
The personnel was without any in-charge in a highly dangerous area in a vehicle that was not able to take them out of
The government has claimed to have gunned down the mastermind of the attack Bashir Shar but no one is ready to believe that the same was the mastermind and the same has been killed either. His dead body has not been produced before the media neither the photos of the dead body been shared.
According to the Gov and Punjab Police , the leader of the gang dacoit Bashir Shar was shot down due to brisk action being taken by the police team. Five accomplices of dacoit Bashir Shar got injured. The injured dacoits included Sanaullah, Gada Ali, Kamlo Shar, Ramzan Shar and Gaddi.
Another humiliation the law-enforcing authorities earned themselves is the bandits’ list, which has been prepared hurriedly and distributed to the media as the most wanted. Punjab government has taken steps within moments after the attack that speaks loud about the desperate effort to cover a big failure. Punjab rarely see such security breeches. Big attacks of that type are routine in KP and Balochistan only.
Interestingly Punjab gov has established 3 categories of the dacoits and fixed head money accordingly, Large size 10 Million, Medium 5 Million Small 2.5 Million. No one knows who among the list is Large and who Small? Gov has not shared what is the criteria of deciding about the category? What information the Gov has used to decide about the sizes?
One on the list and at the top of the list is Shahid Lund Baloch, who has exposed the faulty list in his video shared on social media. Shahid Lund Baloch, first elaborated that he is not a bandit and is not using weapons for robberies but the reason is other, like enmity.
The video is a professional one in which he is showing the list of the Most Wanted and later calling an officer to ask him why his name and photo have been put on the Most Wanted list and how you can fix a bounty on his head? The officer can not explain any solid reason and says, ” It is ordered from high authorities.”
Another video released by the bandits falsifies the claims of the government. In this video, a missing constable of the ill-fated police convoy is shown begging for life. He is appealing to the CM and IG Punjab to fulfill the demands of the bandits, otherwise, they will kill him. The demands have not been shared in the video.
This scribe learned from some sources that one constable killed by the bandits was father of six daughters. He was crying at the crime scene to save his life or his daughters will have to face sever hardships in their future.
Pakistan in the World – June/July 2024
Here the most unfortunate aspect of the incident is , a junior officer of the district administration keeps state of the art vehicles of latest models worth more than 10 to 100 million pkr while a whole convoy of police personnel was on an old vehicle that could not be driven out of the muddy place where the bandits found the opportunity to play havoc with the lives of on duty police team.
Here question rises if you had the ability to hit the leader of the bandits , why did not you do it earlier? The messages goes to the public that Police or Gov moves briskly only when they are hit. The dacoits of Kaccha area in Sindh and Punjab are active since long.
People are asking questions on the retaliation that was quick as well as successful as the gov of Punjab claimed. They say either Bashir Shar has not been killed or he was already in custody. They also speculate that everything the authorities are claiming is just a hoodwink for face saving. The authorities have not made it clear that the injured dacoits ran away or they are arrested?
It is pertinent to note here, most of the dacoits in this list or not in the list, whenever they talk to media or talk on social media, they blame police or the powerful personalities’ atrocities that forced them to lift weapon for revenge. They openly challenge the police to kill them if possible. They have made the Kaccha territoris in South Punjab and Upper Sindh as lawless lands while the law enforcing agencies are mostly trying to avoid engaging them in direct conflict.
They loot the travelers and kidnap for ransom. The public on social media ridicule the authorities for not being able to eliminate them. People also say that the reason the bandits are not fixed is they work for big political figures of these areas.
Pakistan in the World – July / Aug 2024
