By Wajid Shamsul Hasan
I often wondered what is divine justice and when I saw it take place before my eyes, then I realised that there is invisible infinite power call it God or Almighty or the Creator that controls everything big and small. Divine justice as such can be defined as the constant and unchanging will of God to give everyone what is due to him or her. Unfortunately, it has come to be human nature to forget that every possible form of justice is possessed by God and he is infinite. When in authority people tend to believe that they themselves are almighty and they forget about the divine power. We only learn much sooner than later that there exists a power beyond our control when the shoe starts pinching on us.
In our life time we have seen how the wheel of fortune shifts its trajectory. Once upon a time Prime Minister Imran Khan used to orchestrate about his so-called struggle for two years and one day in detention. Then we had lamentations by the deposed Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif and his daughter over the family ‘s plight after his disposal by the Supreme Court of Pakistan and later conviction by the National Accountability Court for corruption and abuse of his office.
Both father, daughter and their party blame former dictator General Pervez Musharraf of having established National Accountability Bureau for his political vendetta against him. One thinks that public memory is short and can be convenveniently used to cover up debris of his
and misdeeds of his hatchet man Senator Saifur Rehman
against his political opponents who he wanted to bury to foist himself as life time Ameerul Momineen in 1999 before he was shown the door. He needs to remember that it was he who set the vendetta trail of accountability to fix his political opponents.
Short memory and miniscule thinking span are advantages for those who don’t learn lessons from their past mistakes. Former Prime Minister has conveniently forgotten that it was Accountability Cell under his Gestapo-like hatchet man Senator Saifur Rehman that was outrageously to victimise twice-elected Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband to eliminate them both politically and physically so that he gets sweat-free travel far in pelf and power, ill-gotten gold and glitter.
In the lust for absolute power, they did their ugliest best to fabricate cases against Pakistan’s only international face, a political figure of iconic stature, forced her into exile by getting gun-point judgment against her and her by the Accountability Court headed by Justice Malik Qayum. It was a stinking judgment so criminally faulty that the Supreme Court quashed it with severe strictures against the Accountability judges.
Later when intelligence tapes of orders conveyed to Justice Malik Qayum from Senator Saifur Rehman, pressure to carry out as directed by the then Chief Justice of Lahore High Court, Federal Law Minister Khalid Anwar and the present Chief Minister of Punjab—the sordid drama got exploded bringing into international ill-repute how low our judges could stoop to please their masters. In their callous vendetta they not only held Asif Ali Zardari incarcerated without any conviction !!!! for eleven long year. At one stage Mian sahib’s favourite police officer Rana Maqbool of Punjab police now a Senator was despatched from Lahore to kill him in the lock up.
Somewhere in my newspaper clippings have old copy of Financial Times carrying hair-raising ‘SL tales of third-degree methods of torture inflicted on Pakistani as well international executives. of mega power project like Hub Co by Senator Saifur Rahman and his strong team of Tara Masihs.
The Senator needed ‘confessions’ against Bibi and AAZ as such innocent executives of multi-nationals were hung upside down until they forcibly confessed of bribery.
It was a real tragedy that Mian Sahib and his cronies were blinded by their lust for power that they did not care for the fact that Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto had introduced an ambitious power generation policy at competitive rates attracting billions in foreign investment in the energy sector to put in top gear nation’s industrial growth. Both Mian Sahib as her successor and after him General Musharraf accepted on television that they had inherited surplus power and they were looking for export markets.
Flanked by some of the culprits involved in the ransacking of the Supreme Court and manhandling of the then CJP late Justice Sajjad Ali Shah in 1998, Mian Sahib somehow regretted his involvement in the Momogate conspiracy against PPPP government in his chat with the journalists after his appearance in the Accountability Court on Tuesday. One remembers how happy he was wearing a black-coat along with his cronies in castigating the then Prime Minister in the alleged involvement in Momogate to please the then Chief Justice, Justice Iftikhar Choudhry out there to gun down the government and the President.
This was not the first time when he had been in cahoots with the establishment against PPP. It happened in 1988 at the time of elections when his cronies airdropped fabricated pictures of Bhutto ladies to defame them. Being the king pin in the conspiracy to stop Bhutto’s landslide by ISI-DG Lt General Hameed Gul—he raised the secessionist slogan of “Jaag Punjab Jagg”. Next, he opened up his coffers to oust Prime Minister Bhutto through vote of no-confidence but failed. In 1990 elections he was funded by ISI once again to keep Benazir Bhutto out of power. I would not like to refer here to the allegations by an ex-ISI operative that he received money for Osama Bin Laden too to get rid of Bhutto.
In an anti-judiciary atmosphere vitiated by PMLN campaign venomously carried on against the apex court judges following his conviction and disqualification, now he is having second thoughts and says that he would see to it that NAB and Accountability Courts are abolished in future. Here too he has forgotten the fact that he was co-signatory along with martyred Benazir Bhutto to the Charter of Democracy incorporating the process of transparent accountability through an impartial National Accountability Bureau.
Last but not the least, one could appreciate his reassertion that all the vital national institutions should work within the parameters provided in the constitution. No two views about it. Perhaps statement by COAS General Qamar Javed Bajwa that army as an institution would stand by the judiciary to ensure its decisions are implemented—has blunted the vicious attacks on the judiciary by the PMLN’s foul mouthed goons.
(Author is the former High Commissioner of Pakistan to UK and a veteran journalist. Email: wshwsh786@gmail.com)