THIS August 16, the day after my column on the doings of a minister of the Sindh government appeared in Dawn (aptly titled as it turned out ‘At our own risk and peril’), came a front-page news item in an evening newspaper alleging that some ministers had demanded a ban on three newspapers.

This necessitated yet another letter to the governor of Sindh requesting him to kindly take action as neither he nor his government can afford to have ministers who threaten to use strong-arm tactics. One attachment to my letter was a copy of a letter written in May 2001 to the then Sindh governor, Mohammadmian Soomro:

“I write this as a supporter of the NGO Shehri, of the good work it is doing in Karachi, and as one who knows how Naveed Hussain of Shehri was shot and seriously injured by disgruntled builders in 1997. Members of Shehri came to see me yesterday, sought my help and conveyed to me the following which I now convey to you for your information and necessary urgent action.

“1) About six months ago, an MQM delegation comprising suspended Senator Aftab Shaikh, Khalid Bin Walid, Sardar Ahmad and another came to the offices of Shehri-CBE where they were met by Amber Alibhai, Dr Raza Gardezi and one other.

The MQM delegation informed the members of Shehri that the Five Star Shopping Plaza in Bohri Bazaar was being constructed, rightly or wrongly, by a committed and devoted member of the MQM and that Shehri should raise no objections to its construction.

The Shehri members informed them that it was the duty of the KBCA to tackle any building violations and take corrective action, and that the MQM, being committed and devoted to the betterment of Karachi, should not even contemplate supporting any illegal or unauthorized constructions.

“2) Subsequent to this visit, on a couple of occasions suspended Senator Nasreen Jalil of the MQM telephoned the Shehri office asking if she could speak to Amber Alibhai. Amber was away from the office each time she called.

“3) On May 21 and 22, Adil Siddiqui of the MQM rang the Shehri office asking to the connected to Dr Gardezi, but on both days he was unavailable. When Dr Gardezi returned his calls on the afternoon of May 23, Adil Siddiqui conveyed the following :

“He objected to the complaints still being sent to the KBCA about the desealed construction at Five Star Shopping Plaza and to the adverse publicity being given in a section of the press to the project and to the MQM, including the naming of personalities.

“The MQM was acting under orders from London and the Five Star project was important to the party...

“4) The members of Shehri who have been threatened and whose lives and properties are endangered are as per the attached list. Would you please be kind enough to order that these persons and their properties be protected, and take any other necessary action.

“Many thanks.”

Copies were sent to the Commander, 5 Corps, the IGP Sindh, the chief secretary, the home secretary, the DG-KDA, the CCOB-KDA, and to Nasreen Jalil.

Coincidentally, last week I ran into an old friend, Firozuddin Ahmad Faridi, a former senior civil servant now retired. In the context of my column, we discussed the harassment meted out to him at the end of his career by a federal minister belonging to the MQM (fortunately he is no longer with us and has taken up residence in the US). On September 11, 1997, additional secretary Firozuddin, as chairman of Pakistan Insurance Corporation and of Perac, wrote to prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s secretary, A.Z.K. Sherdil, copying Establishment Secretary Muhammad Afzal Kahut under the subject heading “Illegal instructions of the federal minister for industries and production, Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui (the entire letter was published in a Karachi daily of August 20, 2002). Reproduced here are the final three sentences :

“......I do not wish to run away from the present assignment(s) in the twilight period of my public service. Having said that, I request the federal government either to remove me immediately from the additional charge of the post of chairman Perac or to help and protect me fully, as a matter of public policy and public duty, in the due discharge of my public duties against one of its own federal ministers.

“If I can help it, I do not wish to be the recipient of a posthumous civil award as given to the late managing-director of KESC, Mr Shahid Hamid Malik.”

There are many, apart from his family, who still mourn the loss of Shahid Hamid, a civil servant of repute and ability, who, when managing-director of the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation, was shot and killed as he emerged from his driveway in the Defence housing area of Karachi on the morning of July 5, 1997, during the second government of Nawaz Sharif. With him died his driver and his guard. They were on their way to Shahid’s office.

A year and a half later, after the change of government and the Musharraf takeover, an activist of the MQM, one Saulat Mirza, was arrested and charged. He was tried, found guilty and sentenced to death. He appealed to the Sindh High Court. The sentence was upheld. He went to the Supreme Court in appeal, where the sentence was also upheld. This process was exhausted some time early this year, and the man then filed a mercy petition with the home minister, Sindh. And the matter rests there.

President Pervez Musharraf has his own agenda which he feels he must follow and which he seems only able to so do by making compromises all along the way. So be it. But we cannot forever live on deterrents. Under the present unpredictable and somewhat daunting circumstances there are some in our country who still, after the passage of almost five years, consider him to be the best of the bad lot available.

His foreign policy is flexible, suiting the shifting circumstances, and we can only hope that he is capable of moving the ‘core’ issue vis-a-vis India on to the backburner so that we, the largely poverty-stricken 160 million may live in peace with our neighbour. But what he must no longer do is to compromise with his home policies at the cost of law and order and at the risk of the lives and properties of his citizens.