South Asia Citizens Web

Lahore, August 4, 2010: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) expressed serious concern on Wednesday over the spree of killings unleashed on Karachi after the assassination of a lawmaker, and called upon all political actors to do everything within their power to end the bloodshed in the city and settle their differences in a non-violent manner.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, HRCP said: “Karachi has once again descended into the now familiar mayhem, with nearly 70 people dead and another 200 injured. As the murders, torching of vehicles, shops and pushcarts continue, the citizens have been left to fend for themselves.
The assassination of Muttahida Qaumi Movement lawmaker Raza Haider is condemnable indeed, but the subsequent killings on the streets of Karachi are equally unpardonable. While MQM’s grievances are understandable, their tendency to blame one party for anything that goes amiss would not help. It is now painfully obvious that there are many actors, including terrorists trying to fish in troubled waters, who can start mischief and then sit back as Karachi degenerates into violence.

India’s unique identification number project has been sold on the promise that it will make every citizen, the poor in particular, visible to the State. But the UID project raises crucial issues relating to profiling, tracking and surveillance, and it may well facilitate a dramatic change in the relationship between the State and the people. The Unique Identification Authority of India has not acknowledged these concerns so far. And now, nowhere in the proposed draft bill that it has prepared have these issues been addressed nor have clauses been drafted to prevent abuse of information that will be collected by the agency. With so many questions on the project – regarding biometrics, security and privacy – yet to be answered, it is far from time for parliamentary approval. As has been observed, the Constitution is expected to provide the citizen with dignity and privacy; but these are missing in the UID project.

That propensities and inclinations have a way of getting handed down the generations was proved by the Naxalite programme of killing sundry people in the name of eliminating class enemies. This, in fact, alienated them from the masses for whose sake they were itching to create an instant revolution.

The Maoists have gone a step further. They are no longer targeting individuals; they have chosen general terrorization, with indiscriminate murders and mindless destruction as the road- map of successful revolution. They are, instead, likely to arouse mass aversion; not among the tribals, they will presumably retort. And possibly that is their real objective, to provoke the Indian establishment into an ethnic war. Some quarters in New Delhi — and in one or two state capitals — cannot, it would seem, wait to obey their script.

The first indication that the probe into the Samjhauta Express blast would be ‘reorganised’ had come in June 2010 itself when investigators probing the blasts had discovered footprints of similar Hindutva terrorist group which had carried out the Malegaon terror attack (Sep 2008) (The Telegraph, June 27 , 2010). In fact it was the same time when few activists of the RSS had been apprehended by the Rajasthan ATS and more leads about the same outfit’s involvement in the May 207 Mecca mosque blast in Hyderabad had emerged. The similarity in the triggering mechanism for the Mecca mosque blast and the Feb 2007 Samjhauta Express blast was also found to be striking. The home ministry deemed it necessary to closely monitor the probe against the real perpetrators which was the only way to unravel the “complex web”.

The PUCL fact finding team led by Vice President of the State PUCL, senior advocate Ramesh Nandwana, District Secretary, Vinita Srivastava, State Executive member and lawyer Arun Vyas other members of the PUCL Udaipur District - Shyam Lal Dongra, Kiran Singh, Shri Ram Arya, Hemlata, Rajesh Singhvi and Rashid conducted a fact finding of the recent communal events that took place Sarada Udaipur, after a criminal incident in that area. They visited Sarada on the 28th of July and were prevented from going to the area due to curfew in that area where 70 houses of the Muslims were burnt down. The team met the affected families as well as leaders from all sides. It also interacted with the police and administrative officials.