The skies don’t fall

All 7 skies came tumbling down on our heads when a journalist was shot, his family informed of suspected attackers.

No they don’t fall that easily.

They did not fall when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was rearrested under Martial Law Regulations a few days after being bailed by Mr Justice KMA Samdani of the Lahore High Court in the murder case of Nawab Mohammad Ahmad Khan. The arrest came when Bhutto came to Lahore from Karachi a few days later and was received by massive crowds, unnerving the army dictator of the time. He was arrested that same evening and sent to Kot Lakhpat jail where he was kept in appalling conditions, his barracks deliberately chosen to be next to those that held violent lunatics who screamed and shouted all day and all night.

He was kept under those conditions, in a tiny cell with not even a charpoy for almost two years, until he was moved to Rawalpindi Jail, again to a tiny cell with no charpoy, until he was hanged after his review petition against the death penalty handed down by the hanging bench of Maulvi Mushtaq was rejected, both trials very widely considered as being completely unfair, his execution being universally called ‘judicial murder’.

As an aside, Justice Nasim Hassan Shah who was one of the members of both the hanging benches, being ‘elevated’ to the Supreme Court just as Bhutto’s case was to be heard there, admitted as much in a stunning interview conducted by one of the most tenacious journalists in the country, Iftikhar Ahmad, in his Jawabdeh programme some years ago. One has to see it to believe the chicanery, the plain skullduggery that went on, but the skies did not fall.

But let’s go back a little for the Bhutto trial and the utter cruelty with which it was held has no parallel in the judicial history of even a half-civilised country. The skies did not fall when the trial was sent straight to the Lahore High Court whose Chief Justice was the newly brought out of retirement enemy of Bhutto’s, Maulvi Mushtaq, who had been superseded and who made no secret of his extreme hatred towards Bhutto. Nor did they fall when Maulvi decided to head the bench himself over Bhutto’s protestations that he did not have any faith in Maulvi.

The skies did not fall when one day, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was refused the straight-backed cane chair on which, because of a bad back, he used to sit in the back of the police pickup truck to court and back. When Bhutto refused to sit on the wooden bench in the pickup, telephones flew between the jail superintendent and the High Court which finally rescinded its order and allowed the chair to be placed in the back of the van.

When the judges entered the court room Maulvi shouted, “Why are you late?” Bhutto explained that since he had a bad back and the usual straight-backed chair was not provided in time he could not come until it was. “Remove his chair”, roared Maulvi, “You will keep standing all day”.

“My Lord, don’t treat me like this, I am the former President and Prime Minister of this country.” “You are a criminal, and if you don’t shut up, I’ll have you whipped in jail — I have the authority”. But friends, the skies did not fall. Neither when the matter of his being a Muslim came up! I ask you.

Nor did they fall when his wife and daughter were not even allowed to attend the funeral of their loved one and he was given virtually a pauper’s burial with a dozen or so attending. This shamelessness was repeated when another leader was killed under the orders of another dictator, the Commando this time, and no one from Nawab Akbar Bugti’s family was allowed to attend his funeral, only eight servants saying the funeral prayer. But, the skies did not fall.

The skies did not fall when then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was removed from office and locked up in Attock Fort by another dictator, yes, selfsame Commando in 2009, and then exiled along with his whole family including aged parents. Or when he and his brothers were not allowed into the country to bury their father.

They did not fall when Begum Nawaz Sharif was prevented from leading a protest demonstration and her car was picked up by a police crane and towed to a police station and kept suspended for eight hours in the burning June sun.

The skies did not fall when Nawaz Sharif was allowed back into the country by the Supreme Court in 2007, but was sent right back in handcuffs by the dictator Commando. I ask you.

None of the above has ever happened to any one belonging to any ‘institution’, ever! Even the profligate Yahya Khan was kept in house arrest and before that in a most salubrious rest house in Abbottabad with more than enough Black Dog in the larder; valets, batmen and all.

And yet, all seven of the skies came tumbling down on our heads when a journalist and TV personality was shot multiple times in Karachi and his family informed the country of his suspicions as to his would-be attackers. Whilst the way in which his channel went about repeatedly showing the picture of the head of the ‘institution’ was completely uncalled for, the reaction from the ‘institution’ was not needed.

It is elementary that one should not go around demanding the banning of this or that newspaper or TV channel for two critical reasons: there are other penalties such as heavy fines, indeed criminal action where malfeasance can be proved against individual actors; and two, the negative publicity whipped up by other channels, and the ‘institution’ through rather small demonstrations by banned outfits may actually help the media under attack IMPROVE its demand/circulation.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 2^nd, 2014.

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