Some people are just naturally unlucky when it comes to the law — like American citizen Eric Burns Overstreet, who spent many months in jail for spilling a fountain drink.
Then, there are those who are made unlucky at the hands of a state they place their trust in.
Such was the case in a recently unfolding saga out of Egypt, which resulted in a four-year-old boy being sentenced to life in prison for murder.
The toddler, Ahmed Mansour Qurani Ali, was charged with murder and attempted murder. He was convicted on all counts.
The problem?
The court in question failed to check the boy’s birth certificate. Turns out, the person they really wanted was 16-year-old Ahmed Mansour Qurani Sharara.
The case boiled down to something which could have been solved by anyone with access to social media and perhaps an investigative intuition: a simple open and shut case of the ‘same name, some confusion’.
However, world over, one thing is certain — saner heads do not always prevail.
It took countless court and police resources, the terrifying arrest of the toddler’s very confused father, his subsequent fleeing for a year fearing for his life, and just over a year for Egypt to sort out the mess.
Pakistan is no stranger to such absurdity.
Too frequently, our country’s justice system and police authorities find themselves facing repeated criticism for their inexplicable actions — some bordering the black and white areas of disruptive and simply not okay, while others lurking in the more grey area of sheer hilarity.
Here are a few ludicrous reasons you could get arrested in Pakistan:
1. Kohli fan
Umar Draz. — Dawn/File
Our list’s topper is 22-year-old tailor Umar Draz. A diehard fan of Indian batsman Virat Kohli, Draz was booked for putting the Indian flag on top of his home in the Okara district of Punjab.
As with many problematic things in our society, the young tailor’s problems arose from good old-fashioned nationalism.
Take a look: Should there be no Indian cricket fans in Pakistan?
Earlier this year, Draz’s home was raided by police after neighbours complained about the Indian flag hoisted boldly on to his roof.
What really was just the case of a Virat Kohli fanboy, Draz’s passion for Kohli is now a nightmare since he was thrown in jail and charged under Section 123-A of the Pakistan Penal Code (acts of damaging the sovereignty of the country).
Explore: Suspicion is in the air
Verdict: While Draz currently awaits sentencing and while all of his hundreds of Virat Kohli posters and the Indian flag have been seized by authorities, we are going to reserve judgment until the outcome of the Asia Cup match.
2. Baby charged for attempted murder
A lawyer taking the thumb impression of nine-month-old Musa on a bail bond. —AFP.
How easily delusion and old-fashioned ineptitude can trump even the most basic of laws. Pakistani police demonstrated this to a tee when, in 2014, a nine-month-old Pakistani boy was charged for attempted murder.
The infant’s crime?
He was with his family at a protest in a Lahore slum that turned violent. Police at the scene alleged the boy, who was seven months old at the time, aided and abetted in the crime by throwing stones at them.
Examine: Baby of the system
Verdict: The New York Times summed up the absurdity of charging an infant with attempted murder by pointing out that while “Pakistan’s legal system has failed in the past to prosecute the likes of Osama bin Laden…when it comes to an infant accused of something that is, on the face of it, impossible, the system functions quite differently.”
3. Polio arrests
A health worker, guarded by security personnel, administers polio drops to a child.— INP/File
In October 2014, those in charge of medical global declarations declared Pakistan as being in the midst of a polio epidemic.
Last year in March 2015, hundreds of parents in Khyber Pakthunkhwa were arrested and jailed for refusing to give their children polio vaccinations.
See: Polio arrests
Never mind the fact that a lot of these parents were probably opting against the vaccination not because having a child with polio was their game plan but because the Pakistani Taliban posed a very real threat to those who sought out polio vaccinations.
Verdict: While the sentiment behind eradicating the threat of polio in Pakistan is indeed a noble one, the coalition of reasoning of the KP government is a certified and complete failure in this case.
4. Texting jokes on politicians
— AFP/File
For the blissfully uninitiated, Pakistan has a trend more sinister than e-mail chains that warn you of your impending doom lest you fail to forward. This is the trend of mass forwarding of cheesy, dirty (sometimes both) jokes over SMS.
With the prevalence of personal phones coupled with dirt-cheap messaging rates, folks were forwarding SMS jokes with impunity — that is until 2009 when the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government came down hard on those texting derisory jokes about its leader.
At a time when Pakistan was facing more pressing concerns such as terrorism, the then-government decided that throwing down the gauntlet on the transmission of harmless jokes against political leaders was the obvious and reasonable thing to focus efforts and funds on.
And so, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) was tasked with tracing culprits behind SMS’ “slandering the political leadership of the country”. Once caught, the violators would, under the vague Cyber Crimes Act, not only have their property (i.e. the cell phone) seized but also face a 14-year jail sentence.
Verdict: This was a heavy-handed crackdown, indeed. Unfortunately, Pakistan’s leadership missed the memo on what continues to really plague the nation: a sputtering economy, severe power outages and the mistreatment of minorities.
5. Wedding celebrations
— Creative Commons
The government’s war on fun continued despite a change in political leadership. In 2014, Pakistani batsman Umar Akmal found the cliché of ‘marriage is a prison’ almost come true in the most literal sense when he broke the one-dish-of-food-at-weddings law.
The perks of being rich and famous (and, therefore, mostly, somewhat above the law) meant that Akmal escaped the venue leaving four guests to be arrested in his stead.
A few months later, two brothers having a joint wedding ceremony were not as lucky and wound up spending the first few weeks of married life behind bars.
The crime?
Setting off fireworks into the air in celebration. The brothers, along with three other guests, were charged under the explosion provisions of anti-terrorism legislation. Their sentence, if found guilty, was an unappealing very long prison sentence or, an even more unappealing death penalty.
When it comes to the one-dish rule, the law’s ambitions are on point. Curbing excessively lavish wedding celebrations that result in a disgusting amount of food wastage is something every citizen with a conscience should care about.
But using anti-terrorism legislation to shut down firecrackers at weddings — a longstanding cultural tradition — is just heavy-handed misuse and abuse of a case which has nothing to do with militancy.
Verdict: There is no quicker way to kill a party than arresting the groom and baratis. There has to be a better way to control the admittedly wedding-crazy people of Pakistan. In the meantime, our law enforcement agencies need to chill, fines payable immediately need to be instituted instead of immediate arrests, and grooms need to not spend their wedding night in a prison cell.
Honourable mention
Given that Bollywood enjoys immense popularity in Pakistan, it is not uncommon for Pakistani fans to mourn following the demise or sickness of Bollywood celebs.
Strangely enough, a Pakistan fan, named Salman Khan, took things to a new extreme when Bollywood actor Salman Khan was sentenced to five years in prison for a hit and run.
Khan, a true fan, begged police to arrest him insisting he “[should] go through the same pain as the real Salman Khan [because] how unjust it is that Salman Khan has to go to jail and I remain free”.
This particular episode resulted in authorities acting right and not arresting the Pakistani Salman Khan but it gets an honorable mention in this list for its sheer absurdity.