AT PENPOINT
The attempt on PTI chief Imran Khan’s life has had the effect of pushing his Long March into the background, while at the same time the lordly disdain with which he has treated the criminal justice system has meant that his assailant has an increasing chance of acquittal.
Indeed, the very first step, that of converting the assailant into the accused, has not been achieved, because of the dispute over the FIR. Imran insists that the PM, the Interior Minister, and the ISI’s Director General; the police refused to nominate a serving Army officer without any evidence. They seem to have no objection, though, at nominating the PM and the Interior Minister, though, equally without evidence.
The FIR was finally lodged on Monday, after the Supreme Court intervened. What the police should have done, lodge the FIR itself, was not done for four days. Such a delay is usually fatal for the prosecution. The FIR did not name the alleged conspirators. That is one reason why FIRs are registered by victims: they would know if there are any conspirators.
That meanest the police now had a reason to hold the assailant. The next problem is that in the absence of a medicolegal report, there is no reason for a FIR of assault to be registered. True, the possession of a weapon, and the firing of it, constitute offences in themselves, but for that the crime scene should not have been so blatantly violated. Prominent criminal lawyers would not like to take the case, except perhaps for the fee, because there is no credit to be derIved from it, so full of holes is the prosecution case.
Apart from the prejudice against naming a member of the armed forces, let alone a serving general, the police do not like the nomination of persons whose connection with the case cannot be established. Even if such persons are exculpated upon investigation, and thus do not have to face trial, their inclusion in the FIR is stressed by the defence to establish that the very FIR, on which the charge is based, is dubious.
A more normal procedure would be to have such persons named in the supplements to the FIR that are prepared by the Investigating Officer. If an FIR is filed against ‘unknown persons’, it is in those supplements, which the IO files as he goes about identifying them, that it is explained how these persons were identified (such as the recovery from that person of goods stolen during a burglary). On the basis of these supplements, a formal charge may be made.
The problem with naming someone in an FIR, who is reported by the police to have no connection established, is that the actual criminal may be acquitted. However, especially in FIRs filed in rural areas, the purpose is not so much to gain a conviction, as to bother the person nominated. In this case, for example, nomination for the PM, Interior Minister and DG ‘C’ would mean being liable to arrest, having to get pre-arrest bail, joining the investigation, hiring and consulting a lawyer, and generally suffering much inconvenience. If one succeeds in obtaining quashment of the FIR from a High Court, that can be used to great effect in the defence of the assailant.
While Imran has benefited politically from the attempt, his surviving has meant that he has got the full benefits of the halo of martyrdom. Liaquat Ali Khan and Benazir Bhutto were assassinated at Liaquat Bagh, Rawalpindi. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged in Adiala Jail Rawalpindi. Imran was still a long way from Rawalpindi, even though he was on his way there.
One of the effects of nomination, though, would be to establish how powerful Imran is.The purpose of nomination is not so much as to get the perpetrator punished, as to get the person nominated arrested. While PM, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had a case of buffalo theft registered against Ch Zahoor Elahi, not to punish him, but to accuse him of something that would not lower him in the eyes of fellow villagers.
Burglary or interfering with a minor would have been another matter, sending different signals., tending to disgrace someone in the eyes of his neighbours. That is, for example, the issue with Azam Swati’s video, which is a very rural thing. It seems that there is no criminal activity involved, just embarrassing.
An FIR need not be registered by the victim.
Technically, it just provides a record of how the police got to learn of the event. Which is why so many FIRs, registered after careful consultation with a lawyer, include, after a narration of the incident, with the words, “And then I met the SHO who was on patrol”. The urgency of reporting a crime to the police cannot be over-emphasized, as defence lawyers probe deeply into any delay. The delay that has taken place so far is possibly fatal to any prosecution.
A further complicating factor for any prosecution is the suspension of the entire staff of the police station, including all officers who had initially responded to the incident. One result is that the chain of evidence has been badly disturbed, perhaps beyond retrieval.
One effect of this delay has been to embolden the naysayers in the PDM parties, who are expressing doubts over whether Imran has been injured at all. The reminder was inevitable of the last illness of Kulsoon Nawaz, which was initially dismissed as faked by opponents of Mian Nawaz Sharif, and only whose death stopped this speculation.
True, there are those who perhaps would only be satisfied if Imran was killed, but he has not helped matters much by refusing a proper medicolegal examination in the presence of a magistrate, which was supposed to be one way around his failure to present himself at a designated hospital. Indeed, Imran should have been treated at the Wazirabad THQ Hospital if he was serious about pursuing the case. The trial court, the district and sessions court, Gujranwala, would not be happy with a medicolegal examination in a different division.
However, what the incident has meant is that Imran has been spared the rest of the Long March. Even before the attempt, the Long March had become nothing but a series of rallies in the evening, with Imran coming back to Lahore after addressing the crowd, and then rejoining the March the next day for the next rally. Now he will only join the March in time for the entry into Islamabad.
It has also generated a sympathy wave for him. How long that wave might last is crucial. Will it carry over to the next election? If those elections take place at the last possible moment, that will be a little under a year from now, enough time for much to have happened. The allegation that the incident was staged is probably because of this.
There are also questions arising about the security of Imran’s container. There are also questions arising out of the fact that the PTI controlled the Punjab government and police which let this happen, and which is responsible for the investigation. The FIIR is the only way of dragging in the federal government.
Imran has used this incident to up the ante against the establishment. Its unfavourable institutional reaction came in the DGISPR’s reaction, which sharply rejected the charge against The Army officer named.
Even though the nation has passed through a major trauma, the Long March has not turned bloody, which means in turn that hopes for the establishment to oust the government are perhaps even more distant than before the incident.
While Imran has benefited politically from the attempt, his surviving has meant that he has got the full benefits of the halo of martyrdom. Liaquat Ali Khan and Benazir Bhutto were assassinated at Liaquat Bagh, Rawalpindi. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged in Adiala Jail Rawalpindi. Imran was still a long way from Rawalpindi, even though he was on his way there.
