The myth of Chaudhry Aslam

The first stage in mythologising a recently deceased public figure is to trot out the pop culture analogies, no matter how asinine. The assassination of Chaudhry Aslam brought the Dark Knight comparisons, which would have made sense if Batman was a cop rather than someone disgusted at the way the police operated and if he wasn’t someone who took a vow against killing, no matter how much the bad guys may have deserved it.

Chaudhry Aslam did kill – a lot and often without justification – an indisputable fact that has been omitted from his eulogies. The more apt reference, even if done inadvertently, has been with Dirty Harry. The cop played by Clint Eastwood shot first and didn’t bother asking questions later.

Chaudhry Aslam was a law-enforcement official who had contempt for the law. His rise to prominence was occasioned by the role he played in the operations in the 1990s against the MQM. Our historical amnesia apparently now extends to airbrushing this dark chapter out of Karachi’s history.

The term ‘encounters’, borrowed from the actions of the police in the Lahore of the late 1980s, was popularised here as a euphemism for killing people it would be a hassle to arrest. That this operation was carried out against the largest political party in the city made it even worse. Sure, the party was hardly untainted but the correct way to deal with that would have been through investigations, the collection of evidence, filing cases and then testifying in court. You know, the kind of police work that leads to untainted justice, the kind of police work carried out by policemen who aren’t eulogised in print.

A certain kind of credit can be given to Chaudhry Aslam for being one of the only policemen who took part in the operation and wasn’t mysteriously killed soon after. His survival showed that he was someone who had learned to play the political game of staying on the side of whoever was in power. He was both politically suave and ruthless, qualities that may ensure continuous promotion within the police ranks. That, however, is not the stuff of which glittering obituaries are made.

Those of a forgiving temperament may be inclined to let Aslam’s role in the MQM operation slide, saying he was forced into it and later reformed. Doing so would entail ignoring his stint in jail for the ‘encounter’ that led to the killing of gangster Mashooq Brohi. His conviction was later overturned but it did not make his trigger finger any less itchy. There were further shootouts, against Rehman Dakait, the Taliban and probably dozens of others who weren’t deemed worthy of featuring in the media.

The case for Chaudhry Aslam rests on two recent, related aspects of his police career: the action he took against Taliban who have infiltrated the city and the resultant attempts on his life, the last of which was successful. Let us concede that Aslam was braver than most in the police and did not flinch even after being so cruelly target. We can also buy into the proposition, even it is dubious, that the police have the leeway to operate outside the law against the Taliban since they pose such an existential threat to the country. Even if he is worthy of praise for his anti-Taliban police work, it would not erase his previous record.

Holding two different opinions about a person is not particularly difficult. Just because Aslam used tactics that should have got him fired, tried and jailed does not make one a supporter of the Taliban, of the gangsters that blight Karachi or of the MQM. And being critical of the man does not automatically make one supportive of the horrible way in which he was killed.

This shouldn’t need to be stated, but the hero worship of Aslam, makes it necessary: rule of law should apply to everyone, be it law-enforcement officials or alleged criminals. We have a judicial system because, surprise, human beings are fallible. We do not know how many innocent people Aslam killed in pursuit of his own brand of justice but unless we believe that he was omniscient in a way that no person ever is, we can be sure that Aslam’s targets were not always guilty.

About the best that can be said for Chaudhry Aslam is that he was the product, not the cause, of a system that encouraged shortcuts. Politically-connected figures always find a way out of jail. Our judiciary is slow and ineffective. Being a policeman who gets results in Karachi involves a certain amount of law-breaking. We should not be defending Aslam but at the same time have to indict the system that makes his methods legitimate.

Chaudhry Aslam has become a martyr because we are in desperate need for a hero in this fallen country. Who better to fill that role than an authority figure who took action, even if he didn’t do things by the book? It may be sad that Aslam is even in contention for the hero sweepstakes in a country that is still unsure about people like Malala Yousafzai. One talk show host even unfavourably compared Malala to another genuine hero – Aitizaz, who died when inserting himself in the path of a suicide bomber – because she lived while he did not.

Both Malala and Aitizaz should undoubtedly be admired as the best this country has to offer. Chaudhry Aslam may have had some heroic moments but there is no reason for him to be placed in the same category.

The writer is a journalist based in Karachi. Email: nadir.hassan@gmail.com