The NEWS 17th August 2013 Long hours of folly For five hours on Thursday a man named Sikandar, who was clearly suffering from a mental illness, paralysed the centre of Islamabad – not very far from the capital’s ‘Red Zone’. He had a car, a wife, two guns, two children, and a powerful desire to commit suicide-by-police. He kept sending his wife out with notepad and pen to conduct negotiations, putting forward demands that really meant nothing at all. That the police did not oblige him was probably more by chance than design and he remains in hospital in serious condition. ‘Instant analysis’ as the incident unfolded spoke sweepingly of the failure of this or that agency and department and much of the electronic media managed to plumb depths of abyssal magnitude. Although Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan took full responsibility of the decision on Friday not to shoot at the man and promised that senior police heads will roll for lapses, what became clear is that our law-enforcement agencies were confused, ill-equipped and ill-prepared to deal with this kind of threat from an individual. No one seemed to know what to do for a very long time. There appeared to be no negotiator trained to handle somebody who was mentally ill rather than a terrorist. Amidst all the fumbling and chaos, the government, specifically the interior ministry and/or the interior minister, appeared to be absent, although the minister has strongly claimed that he was in touch all the time. A good opportunity to display a lead, give clear directions and take decisive action has obviously been lost and graciously Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan admits it. The assertions of the interior minister that Islamabad was not paralysed will, however, be taken with a pinch of salt. If there is anyone approaching a hero in the sorry saga it is SSP Operations Dr Rizwan, who kept a cool head when others around him seemed to be losing theirs or appeared to have none, even though the wisdom of approaching the mad man unarmed and unprotected and talking to him has to be questioned. But for the most part Rizwan appeared to have been left alone in a highly explosive and volatile situation. There was little apparent effort by the media to limit itself and at one point there was the spectacle of the media attempting to negotiate with the man by telephone. Rightly so, the government has pointed this out and offered to discuss the issue with media owners. The entire affair, from small beginnings to dramatic end, was a shambles. The manner in which Sikandar the gunman was eventually captured was, at best, absurd. PPP politician Zamurad Khan had no business to act as he did. His intervention certainly violated every kind of security protocol as well as the rules of common reason and itself points to the catalogue of failures at every level. He may have displayed individual courage but his was an act of monumental folly which could have easily triggered a bloodbath. It was fortunate that it did not, also because Sikandar did not really react in the manner he might well have. Further folly was in evidence in that once the man had been taken down the police started sustained aerial firing. What goes up must come down, the area was crowded (where were crowd-control measures when the whole affair had become a family attraction soon after it began?) and the potential for collateral damage huge. We now know that the police were unsure whether there was a bomb in the vehicle. If that was the case, why were the public not moved back to a safe distance? The man was also beaten by the police after being gravely wounded and before being taken away – a lapse of discipline, surely. There were numerous missed opportunities to take the man down using non-lethal munitions, the two children were named and no attempt was made by the media to cut away or mask their identity when their faces were visible. One private channel did at least display the ‘PG’ symbol on the top right of the screen when showing live shots – indicating that parental guidance was advisable and the viewing may not be suitable for children. The episode was in many ways an aberration and we have seen few like it. But it does raise innumerable questions about the ability and capacity of the police in Islamabad to effectively manage a major incident such as this. Our security setup must consider its weaknesses and find ways of plugging them. A protocol needs to be devised to deal with this kind of madness from a single disturbed individual and ways put in place to deal with it. The incident raised an equal number of questions about the ethics of reporting what is undoubtedly a human-interest story in a way that is both factual and respectful of the rights and dignity of those caught up in it. What happened was a fine example of how-not-to-do it by virtually all concerned. We hope it is not a blueprint for future similar events.
Posted on: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 09:55:04 +0000
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