It was a gathering of a large number of important people. The presence of some very rich traders, some top government officials, a couple of parliamentarians, high-ranking military officers, tribal elders and people of similar status showed that it was the gathering where the master players of country were present. As expected, there were those stories and descriptions that could have been amusing and unbelievable for a common Afghan but for them, it was of routine. A parliamentarian was telling about the illness of his son who was taken to Turkey for treatment because he did not trust the local doctors and medicine. They had spent more than two weeks in Turkey and had spent thousands of dollars in this visit. But the most interesting story was of the host; a big businessman famous for having large contracts with the foreign troops and who had a large network of fuel trucks, a couple of wedding halls in Kabul, some other wedding halls in other major cities of the country and similar businesses and had very good terms with ministers, warlords and other influential members of society. He was telling the story of his brother, ‘He was always a very short-tempered person, hahaha. So many times I saved the servants from his wild beating. Last month, he got angry on something and shot dead one of the servants at home. Now, it was a big mistake. Soon police arrived but before they could arrest my brother, they received phone calls and he was taken in this so-called house arrest, hahaha. Then we had to go through the procedures of court and thanks to my friends in the ministry of justice, everything was made easy. The family of the deceased was silenced by a few thousand dollars and then there was the turn of lawyers and judges. By God, they have become habitual of large sums and they did not give any importance to a couple of thousand dollars. Anyhow, with the help of friends like you, my brother has been set free three days ago. He is still angry but I have told him that he should be careful and not kill a person like this because it cost me almost fifty thousand dollars. I told him, if he did any such thing again, I will take and sell his new Land Cruiser jeep that we recently bought him in almost hundred thousand dollars, hahaha’. This last comment was especially enjoyed by all and there was a long round of laughter that kept circulating in this grand room.

I was not the eye-witness of the above story but it was told to me by one of the security guards who had accompanied his boss at the occasion. According to him, such stories, comments, and their consequences are of routine to the people mentioned above and every passing day brings rise in such narrations.

Kabul is a real bizarre place regarding its different views and it has become a complex of extreme differences between the conditions of people and their thoughts. At one side, we see a class that buys its dress from shopping malls of Dubai, goes to Europe for medical treatment, spends its vacations in the United States, and live in grand villas. But when we stand at a public taxi stop, we see large number of small boys that keep yelling and running for more than ten minutes and they are paid only five Afghanis and in the whole day, they hardly make 50-60 Afghanis. Such differences are visible in almost all the countries of South Asia but the problem starts when the powerful gets too much strong and uncontrollable that law loses its meaning for him and he does whatever he wants.

No need to mention here again how some limited number of people made millions of dollars in the last 12 years of the democratic government and the billions of aid money that came to Afghanistan, was held in a limited number of hands. Uncontrollable corruption gave opportunity to ministers, top government officials, high ranking officers of army and police, the corrupt businessmen and others to make millions and very unfortunate was the fact that they all made a cartel in which they aided each other to gain more power and accumulate more resources. It was also a fact that they included of two types of people for whom such unlimited power could have been very dangerous; they were either old warlords who had developed the habit of doing everything by force or those who had at once gained so much wealth and power and for whom it was not easy to withstand such unlimited power. In such circumstances when the power and resources become unlimited and people are also not in position to control themselves, the evil appears in many different shapes.

In present day Afghanistan, crimes and human right violations are not carried out by Taliban, militants or professional criminals but by those who commit the crimes for fun and with the sheer sense of freedom to do any such thing without any fear of law or punishment. This lack of fear and respect of law has also given way to the criminal activities for getting business contracts, do drug business, bribe and harass people for business deals and benefits, and go to extreme by injuring or killing your opponents and enemies. Whenever we hear that a bridge has been demolished or a convoy of trucks have been set on fire by some unidentified people, they are not always Taliban but maybe the private army of those rich and strong warlords or businessmen who try to belittle each other by such mean acts.

Inside the cities, we hear about kidnapping and rape of girls, torture of policemen and other members of government, group torture of the opponents and open usage of drugs inside big vehicles. In all these cases, the perpetrators are known both to the public and police but they are so strong that either they are not arrested or if arrested, soon released without any due legal punishment.

This culture of ‘might is right’ has given birth to two disastrous consequences. One is the belief that with money and political approach, you can commit any kind of crime and easily escape any kind of punishment and there is no rule of law. Second, people have lost their trust on government, police, courts and even the rule of law and they live under the extreme feeling of fear and insecurity. It is the reason why, it is a generally repeated sentence in common public that law exists to punish the poor and weak and help the strong and wealthy.

Just like the situation itself, the remedy for this problem is also difficult as all the government officials who can control this epidemic are also the stakeholders and they will never let the status-quo to be changed as it will directly affect their own benefits. Our hopes remain pinned with the coming generations brought up with education and under the air of social equality who would control the country in future and give way to sound practices and show extreme respect to the law and make all the efforts to uphold its rule.