Rangers’ high handedness sparks protests in Gilgit
PT Report
Gilgit, July 29: Brutal torture of Muhammad Hussain, Chairman of District Council Gilgit, by ranger personnel has forced thousands of people to take to the streets in Gilgit city. People marched through the narrow streets of Gilgit Bazar, chanting anti-rangers slogans, demanding arrest of the accused.
According to reports Muhammad Hussain along with his official driver was abused, attacked, injured and imprisoned in Gilgit city. The incident took place near City Park. He was freed after two hours detention due to public pressure, as the city got tensed due to protesting masses.
Ghazanfar Ali Khan, Chief Executive, assured the protesters that those responsible will be brought to justice. Thousands had gathered in the city streets to condemn the brutal act.
It is pertinent to note here that the rangers have been accused to being brutal in their dealings with public. Resentment against the administration has been fanned by such incidents, which many locals consider as oppressing tactics of “non-local forces”.
In the past such incidents have led to clashes between public and the forces, including Rangers, FC and Chitral Force. The Chitral Force was removed from Gilgit city due to public pressure, when a youth was killed in Kashrote region due to firing by Chitral Force, in mid 90s.
yeap,
the news and the activity by the rangers forces has real a big blundered, against the elected personnel………. this is actually an act done against the People of Gilgit Baltistan……..
Such frequent ugly incidences of insult and disrespect to people of Gilgit are really disgusting and sorrowful. The instant massive reaction over the incidence is but natural. However, some constructive resolve is required to be shown by the saner elements of the area to weed out the root-cause of the prevalent problems, in order to restore peace and tranquility to protect respect, dignity and honor of the people at large.
We the people of Gilgit –Baltistan have to blame ourselves for such frequent incidences of disrespect and insult to our notables and highhandedness to other many leaders for the last four years now, mainly because we failed to maintain peace in Gilgit town. We the Gilgities in particular, need to restore peace in Gilgit town by creating unity among ourselves and exposing the external elements, which not only destroy peace of our gorgeous Gilgit, but also obstruct our way and efforts to achieve progress and prosperity of the area, on the whole.
One can be reasonably sure that once united, the people of Gilgit – Baltistan can do wonderful things, as did the earlier generation in the past. The present generation can repeat the same performance without an iota of doubt, provided serious and determined efforts are made. We need to ensure peace, security and tranquility of our area and Gilgit town in particular for our own sake and the sake of the future generations – it is so imperative. We only have to demonstrate the will and resolve to do it; we do have the capacity to achieve the objectives of peace and progress. As elsewhere, external elements have always conspired to destroy our unity in the past and would keep trying to disrupt our efforts to peace and progress, unless we show our steadfastness and courage to defeat such elements in their nefarious designs and efforts.
Each one of us, who can read and write, have all the more responsibility to appeal to our elders from all walks of life – religious, political, tribal, social to take initiatives and to lead us in restoring peace of Gilgit by reviving the same spirit of brotherhood, same level of pride of being a Gilgiti, same strong value system – respect and honor, as we used to have in the past, say, prior to seventies.
Once peace and security of Gilgit is restored and maintained, only then will we be in a position to ask the concerned authorities to remove the rangers and other non-local forces from the streets of Gilgit town and send them back to the areas, from where they have been called in.
This is really a disgusting act. We must condemn this kind of action been taken against our leaders. The involved personnel’s should be brought to justice. Moreover, the law and order situation in Gilgit is now normal and the existence of rangers and FCs in Gilgit is just to cut our development funds and nothing. The community should demand the removal of the rangers and FCs from Gilgit, because one of the basic objectives of the reorganization of Northern Scouts was to say goodbye to FCs and rangers form the valley.
Abdul Waheed
Islamabad
First of all thanks to all volunteers of Pamir Times for your efforts to bring fore issues of the voiceless people of this beautiful land. It is really a matter of immense disquiet to observe the humiliation of our national representitives. We demand the concern authorities to take immediate action against the personnel involved in the turture in order to pacify the anger of masses of the region who are alreadey deprived of their due rights.
Its really imbarising to all of us but the most important thing which we the people of Gilgit-Bultistan should think is that why tey are here? Its all because of our own acts. If we want to avoid such things in future we must do something like that we should send them back. But the question is How? To do so we the residents of Gilgit should come close to each other and show guts to sit together by realizing eachothers existence. Why we divided ourselves in sects particularly and in casts generally? We are apart from eachother on the bases of minor sectorian differences and killing each other. If we are fighting and killing eachother on bases of these differences why not we come close to each other by looking into the similarities.