A NEW LOW - EVEN FOR THE PBC

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2019/12/14/a-new-low-even-for-the-pbc/

• The PIC attack was indefensible

Lawyers in Lahore have gone on yet another rampage on 11 November. As a result of the inevitable outcry on the media, their spokesperson has protested that this latest rampage was revenge for an earlier attack by doctors on some lawyers at the Punjab Institute of Cardiology when the lawyers went there with a colleague who was under treatment at the Institute. A video of the doctors making fun of those lawyers is apparently in circulation and that is what apparently provoked this latest event.

This may well be true but there is no doubt that over the years lawyers in Pakistan have been increasingly violent. They have thrashed journalists, attacked the Supreme Court, locked judges out of courtrooms, and physically and verbally attacked them. They have beaten up litigants and the police and attacked government servants on the premises of places they were vandalising. Such incidents occurred all over the country, but they appear to be much more common among the legal fraternity in Punjab and to involve members of the Punjab Bar Council. The reason needs to be investigated.

The situation has now unquestionably gone out of hand. On 11 November, lawyers– persons who are supposed to know and respect the law– broke it with a vengeance when more than 200 of them marched onto Lahore’s Punjab Institute of Cardiology. Many of them were armed and they attacked the hospital and even its patients. According to the news they broke the hospital gate, attacked the guards and members of staff, including a female nurse whose shirt was torn and her locket snatched from around her neck, a case of outright theft. The lawyers forced their way into various sections of the hospital including Radiology, the Operation Theatres, and even the Intensive Care Unit. Here they beat up doctors and other staff and pulled the plug on a patient receiving oxygen. The patient subsequently died, as did two others. None of these three people who died were involved in the incident as a result of which this attack on the PIC took place, so even that frail excuse is not present in their case. This was a despicable event, a new low even for lawyers affiliated with the Punjab Bar Council.

FIRs have been registered against the rampaging hooligans under several sections of the law, including assault – which with the death of the patients becomes outright murder. Particularly named are the General Secretary and Vice President of the Lahore Bar Association, and the person hoping to stand for President of the LBA. These persons are said to have been among those who attacked the PIC. One of them made a statement on a lawyers’ forum regarding the patients who died, saying after all other groups of professionals also protest. Why does no one condemn them too?

Not only the law enforcement agencies, but social media and in this case the Punjab Bar Council also need to take action. It must shame on its platform those who are so far enjoying the contemptible fame their videos have conferred upon them, videos that show them egging on their compatriots to destroy, kill and take revenge. These lawyers and their families need to feel shame at these actions and not elation. These people are not celebrities. They are thugs and murderers

She is wrong, and for a professional whose job it is to argue a case, pathetically lacking in that skill. All decent people condemn such incidents wherever they occur, but there can be no doubt about it, lawyers have committed violence much too often, and the Punjab Bar Council in particular has hit a new low. The depths to which it has now fallen shows its members worthy of nothing but disdain. No professional expertise can be expected of a group that takes the law into its hands and hurts, tortures and kills members of the public in the process.

All persons involved in vandalism, destruction of peace and property and murder should be punished, lawyers, doctors, politicians, anyone, whoever they are. If they are not, if nothing is done about this and other incidents and these louts are not shown exactly where they get off the government will have failed to do its job, yet again. Yet of the more than 200 that marched on the PIC on 11 November, only about 34 or so have been arrested. There is also the usual attempt at politicising the incident, with accusations being made against this party or that as being the instigator or organiser, only because someone spotted a person belonging to that party in the group of vandals. Well, the PM’s nephew was also one of the rampaging lawyers. One doesn’t know what party he belongs to, but does that matter? Should we say the PTI organised it? How about dealing with this as a failure to act as law-abiding persons, and above all a failure to act as decent humans, and putting party politics on the backburner? For a change?

There is clearly a problem with the way student unions, doctor’s and bar associations and other such associations are organised in this country, because they appear to resort to violence too often, and they get away with it. Yet it is important for such organisations to exist, because they represent the professionals who are part of it, like parliaments represent– or are supposed to represent– the citizens of a country. But like parliaments there must be controls in place to prevent these other groups from running amok. If these controls fail, it is up to the law enforcement wings of government to punish the offenders.

Not only the law enforcement agencies, but social media and in this case the Punjab Bar Council also need to take action. It must shame on its platform those who are so far enjoying the contemptible fame their videos have conferred upon them, videos that show them egging on their compatriots to destroy, kill and take revenge. These lawyers and their families need to feel shame at these actions and not elation. These people are not celebrities. They are thugs and murderers.

And the Punjab Bar Council. It needs to get its act together, stop protecting its members and affiliates, and take necessary steps to help bring them to justice.

The PIC has had to be shut down to recover from the damage. The people who died are irreplaceable. The equipment and premises will take a great deal of taxpayers’ money to replace. Such violation of a place of healing is a disgrace for the government and for the lawyers of this city. As for the latter, they are now apparently meeting to work on their future strategy following the incident at the PIC. This information was tweeted by Umair Javed with the question: What next? An Orphanage?

Well? Will it be an orphanage next? Or perhaps a school?