پاکستان کی بندوقیں۔۔۔

میں نے کچھ عرصہ قبل سرفراز شاہ قتل کیس کے سلسلے میں ایک مضمون انگریزی میں فیس بک پر لکھا تھا۔ جوں کا توں یہاں پیش کر رہا ہوں۔ بشرطِ موڈ اسے اردو میں ترجمہ کرکے بھی پیش کردوں گا۔ امید ہے معلومات افزاء ہوگا۔

After 2 days of discussion and regrets about the 9th June incident of Clifton, I recognized a fact that besides the inhuman behaviour of security personnel out there, certain facts need to be analysed carefully and sensibly. First of all, individuals from law-enforcing forces should always act with their nerves held. This job is not like guarding a bank or vault, where you suspect every coming person to be the robber. Besides, there are other interesting facts that my friends and readers might not be knowing quite well.

I decided to write this note as a technical critique on counter-terrorism, becuase this has been my lifetime passion, and in fact I have some knowledge about the stuff.

The Ranger fired two shots at the youngster from a distance of approximately 6 feet, which he received on his forearm and on thigh. Reports claim he died of excessive bleeding. And fact is he was shot with a very high power battle rifle, that is used by militaries in warfare. The rifle was G3, which is considered to be a severly damaging rifle.

Currently, almost all of the armed forces of Pakistan, paramilitary forces and Police forces have got high caliber guns as their main weapon, that include G3 (Made in Pakistan) and AK47 (Made in China). G3 is a battle rifle that is one of the most powerful rifles using high power cartridge of 7.62x51 mm (the bullet u may say) and an infantry weapon used in battles and sometimes mounted. While AK47 is an assault rifle that uses and intermediate cartridge that is 7.62x39mm, but still this caliber is considered to be a killing caliber. Only one bullet from these two rifles can destroy a concrete block. These are two of the most powerful and highest caliber rifles carried by the forces around the world. And are meant to engage the targets on long ranges and to penetrate the prtecting kevlars of enemy. Bullets fired from these two rifles(G3 and AK47) have capability to go through the human body making a large wound, thus more bleeding.

High power rifles have a trade off in length and weight too, and are quite ineffective in close-quarter combats and urban areas. One point I am missing here is 7.62x51mm cartridge is widely used in sniper rifles too, which certainly means it is made to KILL!

Now, there has been a debate on it in the civilized societies to use such powerful killer weapons in the combats and in the city law-enforcment. Some 40 years ago US announced the usage of smaller caliber 5.56x45mm cartridge for the service rifles. As for the civilian law-enforcement, they wanted to capture the culprits and terrorists alive, thus they have moved towards thesmaller caliber and less powerful rifles and SMGs. The most popular of which are M16 and M4 carbines and MP5 SMGs that were developed for this very reason. These are not only accurate and precise but also avoid the possibility of collateral damage in case of friendly fire. Also this helped in capturing the terrorists wounded yet alive and resulting in better investigations.

M4 and M16 carbines use 5.56x45mm cartridge while MP5 uses a pistol caliber 9x19mm cartridge. Now a days, civil law-enforcing agencies and special counter terrorism forces are  essentially using such weapons. That not only enhance their capabilities to use weapons effectively in close-quarter combats but also these weapons mostly injure the culprits engaging them unless they are not shot at vital spots. Allied forces in Iraq and Afghanistan mostly use these light weapons.

Paramilitary forces (Pakistan Ranger) deployed in Karachi and Sindh Police both use G3 and AK47 as their main weapon. This means there is less probablity that they would capture the culprits and terrorists alive. And imagine of a person shot two bullets from a distance of less than 10 feet, while these rifles are capable of firing upto 500m (yeah this is a freaking half of a kilometer). Thats why you saw that much blood in a few seconds of him getting shot.

Incident like that was happened in Kharotabad too. Frontier Corps (FC) jawans used G3 and AK47 rifles too. But that was an exception because they fired hundreds of shots. Which would eventually kill even an elephant if they had used .22LR cartridge (the smallest of all, used for bird hunting and shooting competitions). So that is the case of sensiblity and nerve control. This shows the bewilderment amongst our soldiers and forces personnel and this has, of course, certain reasons.

I think its about time Pakistani authorities change their minds and priorities about the selection of rifle calibers. This is a country that has got the world's renowned Army and the larget illegal arms market. We have got a sense of war and arms. We must realize the fact that using such high caliber weapons in streets and urban areas has been disastrous for us. The terrorists and culprits we shoot get killed and the rest flee. And we are left with a trail of the snake which we keep beating about the bush (I have mixed up the urdu and english idioms eh).

In the picture shown here, The third from left is the .308 Win or 7.62x51mm (G3) , third from right is the 7.62x39mm (AK47) and the 2nd from right is 5.56x45mm (M4 & M16 Carbines) cartridge.

Muhammad Ameen Qureshi

Comparison of rifle cartridges. The third from left if the .308 Win or 7.62x51mm (G3) , third from right is the 7.62x39mm (AK47) and the 2nd from right is 5.56x45mm (M4 & M16 Carbines) cartridge.

Photo courtesy Wikipedia.