On January 11th, the former spokesman of the Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Ehsanullah Ehsan, escaped from his prison, and made his way to Turkey. This information was released in an audio recording this week that Ehsan made available. At a time when the world wants Pakistan to take firm action against terrorists, it turns out that terrorists actually are treated better than most prisoners and especially any civilan protestors.
As former editor of Dawn, Abbas Nasir wrote in a column titled ‘Inhuman terrorists rights,’ “It was clear that Ehsan did not face the full might of the law either, as his name was not among the TTP militants sentenced by the military courts. Now, that he has claimed in an audio on social media that he has escaped from Pakistani custody, details are emerging of his life in ‘detention’. One report attributed to unnamed sources said he was kept in a safe house in Peshawar and another media report pinpoints the location of that premises as being in Hayatabad. His family was lodged with him in the same house. In Ehsan’s case, he is said to have fathered a child while in captivity. This reminded me of another terror suspect who is said to have fathered a child while lodged in a cell in Rawalpindi’s Adiala prison. He may not have escaped abroad but was granted bail and released as the trial stalled. Ehsan was luckier if he is to be believed that he and his family, including the Hayatabad-conceived and born youngest member, are now in Turkey.”
Finally, “However, please, please don’t take the respect accorded to terrorists’ human rights to mistakenly believe that your rights will be afforded the same protection; if you feel an inflated sense of your own rights, lock yourself up in a room till you dispossess yourself of that notion. And, in any case, don’t exercise your right to free assembly and free speech in a public place as that could land you in thick soup, one with a twist of sedition on top. You are not a terrorist. You are the miserable loser, the type that protests against rights’ violations.”
