The government is appealing everything. That means it can find lawyers from among those who are still on strike against the arrest of those who trashed the Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC). I suppose it is because the government cannot find lawyers that Rana Sanaullah got bailed from the high court.
Some think he took his time getting bail, but that was more his tailor’s fault rather than his lawyer’s because no court will give you bail unless you go there in a black dhoti and a qameez reaching well below your knees. Sanaullah has the right type of moustaches, though they could be heavier. Another reason was that Sanaullah wanted bail to be given on a murder charge. Only when one gets bail for murder is one respected among ones biradari. Anyone remember the buffalo theft charge of Chaudhry Zahoor Elahi? Now that was approved by a mind that knew rural values well. You see, buffalo theft is not going to demean you in the biradari. At the same time, the charge is so palpably ridiculous that it means the state is going to crush you. It tells everyone that the state can.
Like the Narowal Sports City charge against Ahsan Iqbal. That charge tells all and sundry that the most ridiculous charges are going to be enough if you are in opposition. The ANF may have done things wrong, but probably someone prefers it that way. After all, if all the legal requirements are met, then the arrest would be justified. The might of the state can only be realised if the charge is patently ridiculous. If the accused is ashamed to offer a defence, the government will know it succeeded.
The government seems to have panicked, and given up the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) in favour of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA). I wonder what is the full story behind the FIA raid on the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Secretariat? After all, the FIA did get a new director general (DG), and that too the head of the joint investigation team (JIT). To top it all, the previous DG Bashir Memon resigned just days ahead of retirement, almost as soon as he came back from a leave which had begun on September 28. It seems that he was transferred from his job as if to make way for FIA becoming flavour of the month.
If the government does not have any compunction about drug charges, it should not have any about following the last Western fashion, which is for rape charges, like onetime IMF chief Dominque Kahn or WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Perhaps our law enforcers can bring about some progress, and make arrests for child abuse. The members of the opposition had better be ready to pay the price of speaking their minds. They should look to the fate of Anwar Ibrahim, the Malaysian politico, who has spent since 1998 fighting off charges of sodomy. He only beat the first rap in 2007, and then was charged again in 2008, only getting out in 2018 on a pardon, after Mahathir Mohammad was re-elected as the prime minister.
His relationship with Mahathir has been up and down. Mahathir won him over from PAS to UMNO (somewhat like winning over someone from Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) to the PML) and made him his deputy PM. Then came the sodomy charge. Mahathir retired, but Anwar Ibrahim kept at it, and only when he placed his movement under Mahathir, now 90, but ready for a comeback, did they topple UMNO. Anwar got out of jail, Mahathir became PM, but promised to make Anwar his successor in a year or two.
Mahathir, however, is hanging on, and Anwar, who is now 72, has had another sodomy charge laid at his door. This came after hints that Mahathir should step down, and after he hosted a summit to which Prime Minister Imran Khan first promised to go, then did not. The Saudis were watching the closest as to which way the Pakistanis were going to jump, and to make sure that they made the right decision, had Imran visit them so that he could be told some home truths about who exactly had paid vast sums into the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), who was giving Pakistan oil on credit, and who was charging Pakistan cash for its palm oil.
Of course, opposition figures made uncomfortable by Anwar Ibrahim’s fate were not given any relief by this wing, not if they remembered what happened to Jamal Khshoggi. They did not like the question being asked, whether you would choose a sodomy charge, or getting chopped up in little pieces.
Be that as it may, at least no one’s calling them a traitor. That is what General (r) Pervez Musharraf is convicted of being guilty of high treason. So he is appealing, first to the Lahore High Court (LHC). I imagine that someone will tell him to appeal further upstairs, because though the original tribunal tried him in original jurisdiction, it did consist of high court judges. The judge before whom the case was fixed has asked for a larger bench. I wonder who will be on the other side. I would imagine the government to take the plea that General (r) Musharraf did nothing wrong, and presidents could impose emergency and sack superior court judges at will. I mean, under Musharraf’s rule, would Sanaullah have got bail? Would corrupt elements been able to flee abroad?
