Acquitted, but?
Rana Sanaullah’s acquittal in a drug-carrier case has volumes to ponder. The fact that he was arrested in July 2019, charged, prosecuted, kept in jail till his bail plea was accepted on December 24, 2019, is a trajectory of our system that is rotten to the core. Moreover, the fact that political allegations go on to translate into sheer cases of victimization is an enigma. The previous PTI government seemed to be carried away with the case, and the alleged tip-off from the Anti-Narcotics department led to its blowing up. Now as a special court has quashed the charges and acquitted the sitting Interior Minister, it comes with a reasonable space to indulge in retrospection and plough the loopholes in our judicial bureaucracy, as well as the flimsy governance where one political party is at the cut-throat of another.
The minister’s acquittal is not the first. There are many other cases of people belonging to the yesteryears’ opposition who walked free from the cases pending against them in corruption and other relevant realms. This brings to the fore a fundamental point, and that is there seems to be some vested characters in the system at vogue that go on to build concocted cases against adversaries for the sake of point-scoring, and then sit back to enjoy the drop scene in their mysterious corridors. The government(s) of the day simply dance to their tune. This is how the vicious circle of victimization goes on.
The million-dollar question is where is the 15kg heroin seized from Sanaullah’s vehicle? If it was there, then why didn’t the case get down to its logical end. And if such a ‘discovery’ was a mirage, how come did the case linger on for such a long time? These are questions of lawfare in our compromised system, and go to establish that genuine reforms are needed to stem the rot. The vicious circle of fomenting cooked up cases against adversaries, and at the same time not prosecuting genuine cases with sincerity must come to an end. High time to erect a lawful system that is free from maneuvering.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 12th, 2022.
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