THIS is apropos of a news report wherein PML(N) leader Nawaz Sharif is reported to have said that he will set up military courts in Sindh to end violence and crime.

I am unable to understand that Mr Sharif who has suffered as a result of the exile for 10 years at the hands of a military dictator has failed to understand the working of the military.

The Supreme Court has already declared these courts illegal as it is tantamount to creating a parallel judiciary. It is an immature attitude of Nawaz Sharif to stick to a hackneyedidea of speedy justice through military courts, though he himself is a law graduate.

It is a fact that the military intervened in 1999 because civil institutions were weakened and the last PML (N) government in Punjab invited the military to search ghost schools and detect power thefts. This shows inefficiency of civil institutions and mismanagement by top brass of these institutions.

Creating more courts to eliminate the dacolt rule in Sindh is no solution.

It is time Nawaz Sharif changed his mindset and avoided repeating oldmistakes which resulted in his ouster from the power. The solution to the problem is that a criminal justice system and a police investigation system are revamped and restructured and made more effective to curb crimes in the country.

If police officers are found delinquent, leading to the acquittal of the accused, they must be made answerable to someone. Military courts were never a panacea for the law and order situation and are contrary to the spirit of democracy.

FAROOQ BASHIR BUTTLahore