The Joint Investigation Team’s (JIT) report unveiled some dumbfounded truths hard to believe in technologically advanced and socially well-aware era of 21st century. The most stressful aspect of the JIT report is the alleged involvement of MPA in a murder case of District Education Officer (DEO) who had been rendering his professional services in his constituency. We are acquainted with the flagrant misuse of powers by those who are in the realms of power. Torturing an officer under abduction and brutally killing him in duty hours is a crime too heinous to be thought of even in primitive ignorant societies. Members of assemblies are the makers of laws and the breach of laws by them will push us back to medieval age. The assassinated DEO was kept under abduction by the accused MPA Ubaid-Ur-Rahman at ex-nazim Kohistan’s residence located at Abbotabad. The residence of ex-nazim turned into a solitary confinement and torture chamber for a grade 19 education officer who was famous for his transparency, uplift of merit, extermination of nepotism and malpractice in appointments and transfers related issues. He was thoroughly against political interruption in the affairs directly come under the jurisdiction of educationists. A honest officer was compelled in solitary confinement to appoint MPA’s nominated candidates which he did amid torture.
Later on, for a forceful appointment orders’ issuance he was brought to his office from torture chamber in Abbotabad to Kolai Palas. In a locked and cordoned off building he was dragged from one room to the other by the abductors. Refusal to appoint four additional drivers exacerbated the already tensed office environment into an altar point for the helpless DEO.The abductors dispersed leaving behind an education officer in a pool of blood on a green carpet at his residential room located on second floor in a two-storeyed CCTV camera’s free office.
The second dreadful aspect of the JIT’s report is comparatively more catastrophic as it found his own office subordinates guilty of involvement in brutal assassination of their own officer. As a matter of fact, the accused subordinates deserve a much harder penalties because they were supposed to assist their officer and it was their duty they had been paid for. The firmament witnesses such kind of brutality very rarely when a honest officer is surrounded by violently aggressive abductors and who decides to fight for the maintenance of merit till his last breath.
A baseless drama of committing a suicide was staged as the surreptitiously martyred DEO’s incident came out to limelight first locally and subsequently on mainstream media. It was a well-organised lobby prepared in advance meant for deceiving the masses but the post-mortem report annihilated the lobby by rejecting suicide possibility in a knee-jerk.
For the first time in the history of KPK education community assembled under one flag inscribed with a solo slogan “Justice for Nawab Ali Khan”. The core committee formed by some educationists with active leadership of Mr. Sharafat Ali and Mr.Sultan Sikandar converted a district level protest into a massive sit-ins across the province of KPK. The positive aspect of this province-wide protests was the way these protests were arranged and led so peacefully the like of which can hardly be seen in developing countries. It fulfilled the criteria of any civilised protest inflicting no troubles to the masses and commotion to law enforcement agencies. Besides, social activists remained vigilant throughout documental procedures and one of them ex-Tehsil Naib Nazim Mr. Shaukat Ali was present even in samples collection from the crime scene. All segments of the society have played their respective role with a rejuvenated vigour and zeal. The only worst incident happened to the Information Minister Shaukat Yousafzai when some misguided students raised slogans against him but the act was condemned by all and sundry.
It is a proven fact that determination behind any such campaign can bring the culprits to dungeon how influential such elements may be. All the accused except two have been arrested and handed over to police for remands to be further interrogated. Though the accused MPA has still been absconded but he will be having no option except to hand over himself to the police and face the court as hide and seek for a politician is against the norms of our society.
We should bear one thing in mind sending the accused for remands and arresting the absconded MPA shall not be considered a permanent solution to the issue we have been dealing with for so many years. It’s only the beginning of tackling a gigantic task of education officers’ safety in a region where their lives are excessively in jeopardy.
Permanent solution lies in setting the perpetrators of Nawab Ali Khan an example for new generations to come. Nabbing of absconded MPA without any further delay will convey a message of laws supremacy in the state. The government should seriously think about revocation of district status given to Kolai Palas which by no means deserves to be a district neither by required population for a district nor by any other criteria necessary for a district status acquisition. The government should come up with unequivocal stance on appointments of class-four employees. Who exercises the principal powers to appoint class-four employees? The government policy doesn’t seem categorical in this regard and thus, creates confusions and arouse public anger against officers as political demagogues consider class-four appointments as their personal asset to be given to anyone they want. The government should either authorise MPAs with full powers to appoint class-four employees or heads of institutions with no political interference. Otherwise, it will always remain a bone of contention between head of institutions and MPAs. A grade 19 or above officer can hardly act on dictations given by MPAs. CCTV cameras have become very common and one can see them installed in ordinary shops. All the educational offices shall immediately be equipped with latest CCTV cameras. Officers of the same cadre and scale in other institutions have been allotted full-fledged security by the state while education officers have been left vulnerable to multi-facet dangers. Likewise, education officers too deserve sufficient security for their protection against any mishap. Extraordinary measures should be taken before sending a high rank officer to a conservative society like Kohistan and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
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