Asif Mahmood 

Every now and then, some group announces a march on Islamabad, and the entire city is placed under siege. Roads are blocked, educational institutions are closed, entry routes to the city are sealed, and even the motorway is shut down. The question is simple: What is the fault of Islamabad’s residents? What crime are they being punished for? What a pathetic way of politics. A perfectly functioning road is abruptly closed. Those who block it neither explain why nor identify an alternative route. Children wait outside schools after dismissal. Parents sit helplessly in traffic, fuming at their powerlessness. Ambulances keep screaming for a passage, but there is nowhere to go. This is the fate of patients in this city. If, one day, a dying loved one is being rushed through Islamabad in an ambulance, there is no guarantee that the vehicle will be allowed through. There may be a security route in place, a container blocking the road, or some revolutionary caravan busy bringing its own version of revolution to the streets. D-Chowk has been turned into a mess. For weeks and months, one spectacle or another continues there. When tear gas is fired, poisonous smoke spreads through the surrounding areas. The residential neighbourhoods of F-sector are right next door. The protesters may run away in different directions, but the poisonous smoke enters people’s homes. Where are the children, elderly people, women and sick people sitting inside those homes supposed to go? What is their fault? In the old days, we used to hear stories of invading armies surrounding a city, with trenches dug around it. Today, we see such scenes with our own eyes in Islamabad, and we remain helpless. Islamabad may well be the only capital in the world where anyone can march on the city whenever they please, bringing the entire civic life of the capital to a standstill. It is also perhaps the only city where traders have to go to court simply to protect their businesses. It is a city where containers, which are part of ordinary economic activity, are routinely turned into instruments of a security exercise. In this modern age, the police of a capital city should have capabilities that go far beyond placing containers on roads. They should have modern equipment and specialised training to manage crowds effectively. There needs to be some innovation in our administrative thinking. The administrative boundaries of Islamabad also need to be reconsidered. If there is already a debate about creating new provinces, the administrative problems of Islamabad must also be taken into account. Punjab is barely four kilometres from the Red Zone. How is it possible that protesters can freely reach Faizabad and then be stopped from moving ahead? Parliament is only four kilometres away. On the other side lies Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. If these caravans are to be stopped, they will have to be stopped much farther away. That, in turn, requires a serious reconsideration of Islamabad’s administrative boundaries. There is another dimension to this debate that also needs to be understood. At present, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has a PTI government. But what would happen if Punjab had a PTI government? Faizabad is in Punjab, while Parliament is only four kilometres ahead. Where, and how, would the administration stop the protesters? And suppose Islamabad becomes a province, and its government belongs to a political party different from the federal government. What would happen if that provincial government itself called for a protest against the federal government? What would the scene look like then? Political parties need to agree on a code of conduct for protests. It cannot be a permanent feature of our politics that every year, once the monsoon passes and October brings pleasant weather, some political caravan declares Islamabad another Somnath and sets out to conquer it. There has to be a permanent solution to this problem. Have mercy on the residents of Islamabad.