- Bhutto and the courts that hung him
“Law Courts do not exist in my book”, thus spake the great Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to Altaf Gauhar way back in the early seventies. In the end, those very law courts warped, damaged, incompetent, self- serving and everything bad got him and murdered him. There is a lesson in humility here.
Truth to tell, the trial, conviction and execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto by the Lahore High Court and the Supreme Court of Pakistan were the worst miscarriage of justice in Pakistan’s history. Proper restitution is impossible because a life once taken can never be returned. But at the very least, the Supreme Court can admit its culpability and repeal its judgement saying that it was laced with bad intent and the judges were scared out of their wits of General Zia. The majority of the judges were great careerists and chose to follow the dictator’s wishes and rejected Bhutto’s appeal by 4:3 in favour of hanging. This should have been enough to grant him mercy from execution at the very least.
I asked Air Marshal Asghar Khan what he would do if he were President and he replied, “If it had been a taxi driver I would have granted the mercy appeal, but considering this is Zulfikar Ali Bhutto…” When they were three all, one judge held the balance. But he was a weak little shrimp of a man who at least later had the decency to admit that he judged wrongly. Not that that is much solace to the dead man or his heirs. Bhutto’s execution changed the course of our history forever and warped our society beyond redemption.
In the end, the plane returned and a new C-130 took the body to Jacobabad and the dirty deed was done. As an ironic twist, I am told that the plane in which Zia ul Haq crashed and died was the same C-130. If true, and I have no reason to doubt that it is, these are the twists and turns of fate that I cannot interpret.
But I was talking of miscarriage of justice. There have been other instances too like when the Supreme Court legitimized each and every military ruler who was to come along, namely four and one civilian namely Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. No doubt, there have been instances of great judicial courage also, but they have been few and far between, starting with the Dosso Case, the Tamizuddin case, the Asma Jilani case, and so on. I will not count declaring General Yahya Khan a usurper amongst the instances of bravery because he had already gone after having been legitimized by the same court earlier. So there is no point in being brave after the event.
Talking of power, they have been given too much of it, what with suo moto notices, contempt notices and the like. When in office, chief justices of the Supreme Court thunder and rage as if they themselves are dictators. Once out, they meekly go into oblivion. Remember Iftikhar Chaudhry and his nonsense? Trying to determine such earth shattering issues as what the price of samosas ought to be or the parking fee of Karachi airport or the alleged possession of two bottles of alcohol by a lady passenger at Islamabad airport.
Anyway, the overreach of the Supreme Court has got to a point where they seem to have replaced the army in the public perception as interfering in the operation of government. Before this, we used to think that a civilian government, even if properly elected, was at the mercy of the army and its important policies were dictated by them. That may or may not be so, but certainly now the Supreme Court is overreaching to the point where it tells the executive who it can remove from office.
Even someone like the special assistant on health, Dr. Zafar Mirza is asked to be removed for incompetence, the court implying what qualifications he has for holding the job. Well, I ask, what qualifications do the judges have for being judges? It is high time that we corrected the procedure of appointments not just of judges, but at every level and base them solely on merit not seniority. This whole assumption that after a judge retires, the next most senior will become chief justice flies in the face of merit as the prime minister keeps talking about.
In the realm of conjecture, I have always wondered what Zulfikar Ali Bhutto would have done had he not been murdered by the judges. Or how he would have played the situation after the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Or what he would have done with the unprincipled Pakistan National Alliance, which ganged up to oust him from power. And most interesting of all, what he would have done with General Zia ul Haq and his cabal of generals, politicians and civil servants. One can only wonder.
It should never be forgotten that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto went to his death like a man. The authorities had allowed him a meeting with his wife and daughter, Benazir, the day before and told him that this was his last meeting. He took his wedding ring off his emaciated finger and returned it to his wife. I am told he kept two cigars. He shaved, had tea and apparently some mangoes. Then he walked up to the door and had to be carried the rest of the way on a stretcher. That shows how human he was. At the scaffold, he got off the stretcher and walked up, let his executioner Tara Masih tie his arms and legs and body and said what any man would naturally say, “I don’t know what will become of my wife.” Then Tara Masih put a black hood over his head and like a man who was fed up of life, Bhutto said, “Finish it.”
Anyway, Bhutto’s was a death foretold. A day was decided – midnight of 4th and 5th of April and the idea was to whisk his body away to his ancestral graveyard in Sindh and quietly bury him like thieves in the night before dawn broke. The army C-130 aircraft took off on time, but halfway to Jacobabad, it developed engine trouble and had to return to Chaklala airbase in Rawalpindi where in the meantime they prepared another plane. Needless to say, the authorities were sweating buckets during the planes return. During this time, the Home Secretary, an erstwhile friend of Bhutto’s, was beside himself with worry that if the plane crashed with the body, no one would believe that Bhutto had died. In the end, the plane returned and a new C-130 took the body to Jacobabad and the dirty deed was done. As an ironic twist, I am told that the plane in which Zia ul Haq crashed and died was the same C-130. If true, and I have no reason to doubt that it is, these are the twists and turns of fate that I cannot interpret.
Even though I had good reason to dislike Zulfikar Ali Bhutto immensely for what he had done to my father and my family, I have always lamented his execution. May his soul rest in peace.
