MY very old friend, Omar Kureishi, died on Monday, the day after my last column was printed in which I had bemoaned the fact that he was fighting for his life on a ventilator. The last time we spoke to each other, a couple of weeks before his death, while dwelling on the strange happenings in the Republic of Pakistan we once again resurrected the old saying of that good Baloch, Abdullah Jan. Jan, now long departed, had likened the state of Pakistan to a date orchard which was contracted out (by whom, God alone knows) to whichever government was in power. One government came in, shook all the date palms, and when they were stripped of all their fruit, the barren trees and the orchard were handed over to the next government, which repeated the process, and so on and on. Both Omar and I agreed, time and time again, that there would be little change in our lifetime other than the steady deterioration of successive governments. The best we could do was to laugh and raise a jar to the inevitable. May Omar’s soul rest in peace — there are a lot of us who will miss him, his many friends and his many more readers.

Last week’s column also touched upon the subject of our jails, particularly those in which women are lodged and kept in indescribable conditions. On that front, news is encouraging. Nasir Aslam Zahid, a former judge of our Supreme Court who now teaches law and is the Dean of the Hamdard University Law School, has started a legal aid society for women. With his own contribution of funds and with donations from other concerned persons he has opened an office just outside the women’s prison situated in Central Prison Karachi.

He is aiming high, and any of us imbued with humanity and who know the horrors of the present jail setup should help him in any way we can. His first goal is to establish a ‘model’ women’s prison which can be replicated at the various jails all over the country where women are incarcerated. The problems that face him are, as we all know, many and immediate.

Let us take one ongoing problem. In Karachi prison there are four women who were pregnant when they were brought in. They subsequently delivered babies while serving their sentence. They have now completed their terms and should be released. But they cannot leave, as they have no money, they have no papers/documentation for the babies: Asimwe Gigt and baby (Uganda), admitted on 17/7/03, sentence expired on 29/7/04; Sander Okoror and baby (Nigeria), admitted on 26/12/03, sentence, expired on 13/12/04; Aynura Yaqub and baby (Turkey), admitted on 26/2/04, sentence expired on 13/2/05; Adama Camara and baby (Guinea Bissau), admitted on 2/12/03 and the sentence expired on 9/2/05.

Another problem, that of Shrimati Maya who is of unsound mind and should rightly be in an institution. She apparently strayed into Pakistan across the border, somewhere near Umarkot, was picked up, and put into a jail in Sindh, from which she was transferred to Karachi. The memorandum accompanying her, pinned to her ragged garment, from ‘The Court of the IInd Judicial Magistrate, Mirpurkhas, dated 20/4/04 reads :

“The above named accused was convicted u/s 3,4 Pak Control of Entry Act and sentenced to suffer RI for one year. The benefit of Section 382-B CrPC is extended to the accused from his date of arrest vis 01.01.2001. (She be deported after expiry of her sentence to India.) This is to authorize and required to receive the said convictee and keep him/her into your custody in the said jail, together with this warrant and there to carry the aforesaid sentence into execution according to law.”

According to Judge Zahid, the embassies and consulates of European countries and the US generally respond to his appeals. Others do not even bother to acknowledge what he writes.

Should anyone have the stomach to learn of the miseries and degradation accorded to the 145 Pakistani women and 38 Pakistani children plus the 99 foreigners and the four foreign children in Karachi Central Prison alone, incarcerated in the ‘Special Prison for Women’, and should perchance he/she be willing to offer some sort of active assistance, he/she may telephone Nasir Aslam Zahid at 021-9231375 or 021-9231378, or send him an email message at lao@kwpws.org.pk

Should they not, but still wish to help, they may donate to the fund that has been set up at the First Women Bank, Ziauddin Road, Karachi, Account No.01070673 — Karachi Women Prisoners.

President Pervez Musharraf’s head and heart are in the right place. He preaches correctly. But the government he has put in place in Sindh (and for that matter at the centre) which he hopes will suit his purposes is far from being either halfway good or even mildly efficient. Many who hold portfolios are corrupt, and known to be corrupt, others extort, and are known to be extortionists. The Governor of Sindh and his men and the chief minister and his team prop up each other. They have now, for some extraordinary reason, manifested their corruption.

In full-page advertising supplements in the press on March 18, that historic day which celebrated the 21st anniversary of the MQM, spokesman for the MQM (also an adviser of sorts to the chief minister) wrote a lengthy paen to his chief, who lives in splendid self-exile in London, and to his party which for the moment has an upper hand, under the heading ‘MQM — a party of the masses’, claiming it has been ‘misunderstood’.

The bottom half of the page was taken up by a message from Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, Chief Minister, Sindh, offering his “Heartiest congratulations to MQM” and telling us that ‘The Sindh Government believes in the abolition of corruption, and on the behest of President and the Prime Minister of Pakistan, the province of Sindh is fighting against corruption and we have resolved to continue this process with the support of out allied parties without any compromise....... I once again congratulate Muttihada Qaumi Movement and its Quaid from the core of my heart.”

What is this great party of the masses, with its bleeding heart, doing for the women prisoners incarcerated in Karachi Central Prison, or for that matter for any of the prisoners of whatever sex imprisoned rightly or wrongly, lawfully or unlawfully?

arfc@cyber.net.pk