A warning to all Pak army officers and soldiers below the rank of Corps Commanders
By Justice Markandey Katju
Gentlemen
A reign of fascist terror against your own people has been unleashed by the traitors Gen Munir and the Corps Commanders of the Pakistan army on the pretext of punishing the miscreants who attacked military buildings and installations on 9th May.
While the miscreants who did such acts certainly deserve punishment, they need to be first properly identified and tried, giving them an opportunity of hearing.
Instead, what has actually been done is wholesale arrests throughout the length and breadth of the country of thousands of people, without regard to their age, sex or even semblance of culpability, storming into their houses and dragging people out, even pulling women by their hair, and committing all other kinds of horrors and atrocities.
There must be many honourable men among you, and it is to these that I address.
Your job is to protect the people, not to terrorise or commit atrocities on them. If you receive orders from your superiors to terrorise the people and commit atrocities on them. it is your duty to refuse to carry out such orders, otherwise you may be held accountable and charged for committing crimes against your own people, and given harsh punishment.
In the Nuremburg Trials held after the Second World War the Nazi defendants who had committed horrible crimes, including Field Marshal Keitel and Gen Jodl of the German army, took the plea that they were only carrying out orders of their superior Hitler. This plea of ‘orders are orders’ was rejected by the International Tribunal, and many of the defendants, including Field Marshal Keitel and Gen Jodl were sentenced to be hanged, and were executed. The same happened to Generals Tojo and Yamashita of the Japanese army in the Tokyo Trials
This is now the accepted legal principle that ‘orders are orders’ is not a valid defence for committing crimes against the people. So I am bringing this to your knowledge. Be warned, and tell your superiors you will not commit atrocities on your own people.
