Crime Pays

AUGUST 2001 - Should you chance to visit the airport at Lahore, a marvel of traffic engineering greets you the moment you start to draw level with the concourse hall. While every vehicle is sandwiched in a parking lot originally designed to accommodate tricycles, there is a lane for the commoners, which can take auto rickshaws but no cars. This is where motorists maneuver their vehicles squeezing between two, raised cement side-kerbs, where getting out and unloading baggage requires a performance that Houdini would approve. Commoners, who wish to park, should they find the space, have to cough up money. VIPs go free as elsewhere. Running alongside the commoner’s lane is a sweeping boulevard, which is reserved for VIPs, a role happily adopted by the armed forces these days. While the commoners squeeze, curse and fight their way through impossible spaces, peace, tranquility and order is prevalent on the VIP Boulevard – well actually two boulevards. The one that’s closer to the concourse, to park and the other to float through or park at leisure. It is unlikely that anyone would be stupid enough to wave VIP vehicles to move on. That would amount to treason.

In the early hours of 20th August while waiting for the Emirates flight from Dubai, there were two army vehicles, gleaming and shimmering, parked in the VIP lane. Both bore formation signs and numbers and there was a detail of four army jawans in tow. Two drivers, two assistants. They were further assisted by two gentlemen in civilian clothes and the party of six waited happily for their VIP guests to arrive. Pieces of luggage continued to find their way to the parked vehicles. The Suzuki CarryVan was getting loaded with all the bags that were arriving and the Land Cruiser Jeep was obviously meant to transport the VIPs. Eventually, a family emerged and the six men produced garlands miraculously and joyously placed these on various members of the arriving party. Army vehicles when on private duty carry plates to that effect but these didn’t, so it was an official pick up, but how it was so, was not at all clear.

In the end, fully loaded, the two vehicles sped away while we negotiated aggressive taxi drivers, stranded trolleys and wormed our way to our car. In terms of misuse of official transport, given the usual scale of these things, the airport escapade cannot be very serious, but nevertheless gets your blood pressure up seeing how unevenly privileges and perks are distributed here. Perhaps the sight of army vehicles or police ones is just as infuriating as the sight of cars and jeeps belonging to the VIPs of a civilian set up, but some of us with flawed and outdated thinking, half believe that the current set of rulers would not bend and break the rules since, from all accounts, they are here to live and work on high principles without falling prey to the sins that power brings. Obviously those of us, who think this way, need to be locked up out of harm’s way.

In the larger context, where the country’s resources have been plundered at will and where paupers have turned billionaires, vehicle abuse surely must occupy a lowly ranking. From almost the time this country was created through bloodshed, murder, robbery and rape and the largest exodus of mankind, the power-wielders have wasted no effort to misuse their authority. From grabbing properties that were not theirs to pocketing huge commissions just to do their jobs, there hasn’t been a day when someone somewhere was not bending the rules to extort privileges and perks that were not theirs. The list of crimes committed on the people and this poor country, by highly intelligent, educated and civilized men and women is so long that it will require months to compile. For every one honest official there have been thousands who have plundered at will. The looting has ranged from petty thievery to high scale crime, from forging title deeds to pocketing millions in illegal graft and commissions. Whether a plot of land was to be acquired or fleets of submarines, the principles of loot were the same.

Who can forget Ms Bhutto and her husband denying point blank about Surrey Mansions and changing their story every few minutes? Who can forget Mian Nawaz Sharif’s son claiming on Hard Talk that he had no idea who owned the set of flats in London where he was living? And what about the lady who wore virtue on her forehead, the born-again democrat, Ms Kulsoom Nawaz declaring her husband’s innocence and his determination to stay and fight for the poor of Pakistan? Even as she spoke, a deal had already been worked out with the khakis and Mian Sahib and his brood, cooks and all, were as good as having arrived already in Saudi Arabia even while they were still in Pakistan. The finishing touch to this great game of hypocrisy was the Iftar invitation that the lady had extended to the PML(N) workers, who arrived at her residence only to find that she and hubby dear had fled the coop almost 12 hours earlier by special delivery.

More recently, the ex Chairman of the Senate staged a wonderful performance, denying righteously just about everything the PAC leveled at him – first staving off these charges by claiming immunity from such petty probes and then doing, what all Pakistani power abusers are so good at, denying everything. And Syed Yusaf Raza Gillani had more cars parked at his various ‘official’ residences than most showrooms in the big cities, but then he too was holding an important post at the time and who in his right mind was going to question him? While Mr. Salman Farooqi of the silver tongue and without a single honest bone in his dapper frame, lolls about in bliss and luxury somewhere in the USA, his sister-in-law, wife to another corrupt Farooqi makes fools of everyone here. First she has press photos commissioned showing her and daughter, praying as only holy women can, then challenges every corruption charge brought against her talented husband – he in whose tenure, the Karachi Steel Mills should have been renamed, Karachi Steal Mills. Now, she graces every diplomatic function and party in Karachi and mixes with the cream of the country. Allah be praised.

There was a time when principled Pakistanis would refrain from attending social functions where they were bound to run into thieves and robbers, but those fine social distinctions have fallen by the wayside. The new religion that flourishes here is money, money, and money. That is all that matters and what matters least is how tainted it may be. Misuse of cars is a minor offence and for those who indulge in it, not even quite that. Last week watching the President racing to the airport, the luxury Mercs shimming along, chased by zillions of cars carrying the country’s tin pots and pans, there was a strong sense of déjà vu. The more things change the less…. etc. etc. In essence, nothing ever changed here and nothing ever will. We can’t even dream of a revolution. Someone will be able to buy all the revolutionaries at throwaway prices!