Within the space of six weeks, in this year not yet three months old, three journalists have been shot and killed. On Feb 18, in Swat Musa Khankhel of Geo TV was covering a `peace march` in the renegade valley which has been handed over by government and army to the rampaging Taliban. The marchers were marching to pray for peace. Khankhel was killed by “some unknown person”.

The usual outpourings of shock and grief came from president, prime and other ministers and leaders of our deeply flawed political parties together with the usual condemnations and commitments to bring the murderer(s) “to justice and give them exemplary punishment”. Not surprisingly, and discounting the fact that Swat is no longer under any government control, Khankhel`s murderer(s) remain free and at large, primed to murder again.

Last Sunday in Lahore`s Defence Housing Society, Tariq Javed Malik, a reporter with DawnNews, was shot dead, reportedly by robbers who wished to relieve him of his cell phone — a common occurrence in this country. Again, statements prepared by flunkies were issued by the usual lot `condemning` the murder. They all foolishly “asked law enforcement authorities in the Punjab to take measures to arrest the murderers”. Foolishly, because these people know as well as we know that this country has myriad laws on its statute books but they are seldom applied as disorder reigns and rules.

In Rawalpindi on Thursday, Raja Assad Hameed, correspondent of The Nation and Waqt TV, was shot and killed outside his house by “some unidentified persons” in what was reported to be a “target killing”. Yet again a list of government luminaries and sundry politicians expressed their “grief and sorrow” and “strongly condemned” the murder. Futile “demands” were again made to apprehend the murderers etc.

The murderers of Lahore and Rawalpindi, cities of the Punjab under governor`s rule, have little to fear as the police of the province is in disarray. As wrote one correspondent to this newspaper (Ahmed Noman of Islamabad) in his letter printed on March 27, “mass scale changes in the police hierarchy, just for political whims, have made this institution totally ineffective and inefficient”. He accuses the police force of being corrupt, involved in criminal activities with many officers reappointed who had been suspended for criminal and corrupt practices.

Nothing surprising, we are all well aware of the quality of our law-enforcement agencies, which quality is at a par with that of all our governments, without exception since the advent of social democracy late in 1971 which heralded in the swift decline of whatever institutions this country possessed.

The murderers of Malik and Hameed may rest easy, as may the gunmen who on March 3, in the centre of Lahore, not too far from the seat of governor`s rule, launched an armed attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team wounding six of them and killing eight others, mainly policemen guarding the team. The intelligence agencies and the police have been probing away but so far have come up with nothing. We expect nothing, governance and government being what they are.

We are all at risk, Pakistanis or foreigners who visit or are based here, such as journalists, particularly in the northern areas where the Taliban operate with impunity, totally out of control of the agencies whose job it is to enforce law and order but who are either helpless or linked in some way to the terrorist forces. Foreign journalists have admitted that the territory they can cover has of late been drastically reduced. No-go areas are the NWFP, the tribal areas of course, and parts of Balochistan. Their fears are not only that they may be killed — the greatest threat is kidnapping, now a popular activity of the militants who have slowly but gradually worked their way down to the borderlands of Punjab and encroached into the province (Mianwali has had its incident) and the Federally Administered Islamabad.

Suicide bombers are more or less the norm, as admitted by none less than the man who `advises` on interior matters, Rehman Malik. He was adamant that the `long march,` motoring through Punjab, destination the capital of the Republic, was highly susceptible to bombers, suicide or otherwise. Following the suicide blast in Islamabad on March 23 when a lone bomber took on the headquarters of the Special Branch, managing only to kill himself and one other, Malik admitted that he had information that there would be attacks and that Baitullah Mehsud had infiltrated into the area a score or so of Tehrik-i-Taliban youths in search of paradise. Routine condemnation came from the presidency and government, and Advisor Malik swore to deal with `them` with an iron hand — empty words spouted by those who have neither the will nor the way.

Baitullah Mehsud was also at work on March 26 in Jandola when one of his brainwashed paradise-seekers blew himself up killing 12 in a crowded bazaar area. Then we come to Jamrud, just up the road from Peshawar where on March 27, in a mosque, at Friday prayers, over 50 praying people died, murdered by a fellow Muslim, a loyal Taliban.

Now to address the `worthies` and `luminaries` attempting to govern this unfortunate God-given Jinnah-made country we are not satisfied with `condemnations` or with reading headlines such as `Journalists, rights bodies flay Assad`s murder`. We want to read and to know what Rehman Malik, the man in charge of our safety and security and his like have done to apprehend the murderers. If the government is incapable of handling individual murders how can it combat Al Qaeda and the Taliban? How will we satisfy President Barack Obama? Money will not now easily flow in to fatten the fat.

This government cannot cope. That is clear. How and when will it all end?

arfc@cyber.net.pk