Justice seen to be done

Conviction of a former religious affairs minister may in retrospect be seen as a watershed in fight against corruption

The conviction of Hamid Saeed Kazmi, a former religious affairs minister, may in retrospect be seen as a watershed in the fight against corruption in Pakistan. Mr Kazmi and his two co-accused were convicted on June 3, with the former minister sentenced to 16 years seemingly to his considerable surprise; his co-accused Raja Aftabul Islam was awarded a similar sentence and former Hajj director general Rao Shakeel received 40 years. The three were also given fines commensurate with the sums they have defrauded the exchequer of, which if not paid will be sequestrated from their estates. The convicts are now in Adiyala jail where they are doubtless preparing their appeals, a process unlikely to be swift.

The three men are nothing more than common thieves who conspired together to loot vast sums of money. When they were caught by the Federal Investigation Agency, the previous PPP government did all it could to derail the investigation against them, posting the chief investigator to Gilgit-Baltistan to frustrate the inquiry. That move was negated by the chief justice of the day who ordered his immediate return. That they are behind bars now is an indication that the state is not always impotent or incompetent when it comes to corruption, its identification, and the punishment of those caught in thievery. To be sure, there are times when cases of corruption are not pursued with due diligence, where rich and powerful people are protected from on high and get away with their crimes, but not all cases are whitewashed, not all criminals walk free — though too many do. These men were not minnows but very big fish indeed, who might have expected impunity but it was not to be. There can be no accusations of their conviction being politically motivated, point-scoring by the incumbent government, as they were caught ‘bang to rights’ as the vernacular saying goes. The investigation anyway originated under the previous dispensation when complaints emerged about the mismanagement of the 2009 Hajj. The current dispensation finished the job. We express our satisfaction at this salutary outcome, and wish for more of the same far into the future.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 5^th, 2016.

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