Pakistan must move from being a national security state to one focused on the prosperity of its people
LAHORE: This refers to Mukhtar Ahmed’s letter “Rejoinder to Husain Haqqani” (February 1). The writer is the latest invisible soldier of the anti-Haqqani brigade that keeps attacking Mr Haqqani without tackling the primary argument in his books, articles and speeches that Pakistan must move from being a national security state to one focused on the prosperity of its people. Ironically, Mukhtar Ahmed insists that this country does not wish to hear from Mr Haqqani. If that is the case, why waste time and energy writing rejoinders to him in Pakistani newspapers? The letter also contains a serious attempt at disinformation. The fact is that there is no pending criminal proceeding against Mr Haqqani over the so-called memo case. The chief justice at the time had created a media spectacle through hearings of a writ petition and then left the petition undecided.
The Supreme Court has not held hearings of the petition since Iftikhar Chaudhry’s departure from the bench. As a respondent to a petition, Mr Haqqani need not be present in the Supreme Court for the court to hear the petition further. The commission created by the Supreme Court has given its findings and the Court must decide if there should be any charges on the basis of these findings. The fact that no further hearing of the petition has been scheduled since 2012 shows how the entire exercise was designed to create the illusion of there being a case against Mr Haqqani without following the criminal procedure code and actually filing any charges. The memo case was a farce and has already died its natural death.
Junaid Qaiser
Published in The Express Tribune, February 5th, 2016.
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