The effect was stunning. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry was understandably stung by the incident into issuing her the notice. There is so much going on in the country that he is helpless to take action simply because of the scale and complication of our law and order situation; this time he simply had to act, not only to make the people realise that this kind of action cannot go unpunished but also to shake-up the relevant institution that should have taken prompt action after the entire country had seen an elitist politician inflict injury on a schoolteacher. Of course, the relevant institution was the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), which nobody expected to do the needful given its past reputation for being lax in its supervision of elections.
Waheeda Shah Bukhari was winning in the initial vote count and had no need to throw her weight around, accompanied by a police security officer who simply added to her feudal panache. After seeing the outrage on TV, the ECP sealed the results of the PS 53 election. Its officers explained that the polling officer whom the PPP candidate slapped, had a first class magistrate’s powers and could have heard the case of assault right at the polling centre and sent Bukhari to prison. This, of course, is easier said than done. In fact, the law can be called a ‘bad law’ on the basis of a lack of realism and total absence of an enabling environment. Bukhari was in fact more ‘empowered’ because of her police guard than the unfortunate schoolteacher she beat up.
The three-member Supreme Court bench that finally examined Bukhari, was clear about what she had coming: under penal code sections 353 and 189, she could face a two-year prison term and a hefty fine. She tried to disarm the court by appearing under veil and without a lawyer, throwing herself at the mercy of the Court. The only thing she had going for her was that she had carefully orchestrated an on-camera apology to the hurt schoolteacher, shown by some TV channels with the caveat that the ‘forgiving’ victim was too hidden behind her veil to be recognised. The court understandably rejected her apology and went into the details of the case to probe why the incident took place. The inspector general (IG) of the Sindh police was hauled up and asked why he should not be dismissed because his department had failed to protect the polling staff.
The suo motu notice has served to highlight a societal malaise that haunts Pakistan: the powerful will get away with anything. And that includes non-state actors, once produced by the state committing acts of terrorism without getting convicted at the court of law. Who is going to ensure that the assaulted schoolteacher will fight the case to get Bukhari punished under the law? How will Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry respond to the remark made by the IG Police about his policemen getting thrashed by a gang led by the son of the Chief Minister of Balochistan in Karachi? It is correct to make an example out of Bukhari, but it is also important to inquire into why the killer of the Shia community, Akram Lahori, is about to go scot-free because his powerful terrorist group in South Punjab had made the witnesses run away. Another case pertains to Major (retd) Haroon Ashiq, facing trial for the murder of a senior army officer in Islamabad at the behest of al Qaeda.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 4th, 2012.
COMMENTS (19)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
1713957765-0/BeFunky-collage-(1)1713957765-0-270x192.webp)
1713853507-0/MalalaHilary-(2)1713853507-0-270x192.webp)
@Antebellum:
How about the Oxford-educated "hyphenated Bhutto"? Being the co-chairman of the party, does he have any say?
@John B
Oxford educated what? Asif Zarari, the co-chairman of PPP, is hardly a high school pass! Please tell us from where you are getting this!
Or did you mix up the educational credentials of his late wife Benazir Bhutto or his political rival Imran Khan, both being Oxford grads and all.
she should be put behind ugly bars and shownher realworth, which is nothing! PPP is allabout rubbish minds put together!
It is the legislators who make the laws, with the current batch of corrupt and incompetent lot what can be expected?? We all should be thanking the terrorists for such a low body count
This is a shameful act and must be punished by the law. Speaking of shameful acts, even today a mob disrobed a woman and paraded her naked around a village in Muzaffargarh in Pakistan. As there is no politics involved and the worst insults of women are committed yet not that much of an outrage is seen. There are no court actions yet, there are no political leaders and media there. This slapping has become a more serious crime than actual murders according to the SC CJ. This slapping case is directly heard by the SC CJ while BB's and dozens of PPP workers case is crawling in a lower court. The amount of publicity and SC time and attention Memo and slapping case has been allocated no other serious case has. There has to be sense of proportionality and fairness in each and every case. The punishment should be fair, swift and fit the crime. In a country where it is lawful to get away with murders after paying blood money our SC is busy in an election case where a couple of slaps were involved? A lower court judge could instantly punish the culprit and done with this shameful act.
Unless proper land reforms are undertaken, the feudal hold on Pakistan's politics will continue, leading to bogus elections and bogus governments. Many feudal lords, with titles, such as, Mallick, Sir, Khan, Khan Bahadur, Shah, etc.., were bestowed land by the British to control the masses and to submit taxes to the colonialists. The landed elites obliged the British masters at the expense of the common man and likewise continue to exploit the landless peasants. They hold power to the detriment of the people of Pakistan, quite incommensurate with their numbers. Someone should be able to check them. The question is who could do the needful?
I happen to think that a Taliban type sweep across the country will probably clean this stuff up much quicker than the ridiculous notion that we're ever going to succeed in remaking this society into a more egalitarian one based on some form of secular values.I'm thinking monkeys will establish colonies on the moon before the latter happens
Come on guys...its pretty much simple. Ms Waheeda is what PPP is all about! She is a true depiction of the very much base of what PPP is made up of!!!
my my, what characters are being harboured by PPP...from jaali-degree jamshed dasti to fist-wielding wahida shah....from an intellectual interior minister to lawsuit-worthy law minister (fake doctorate degree or something).....
The likes of Akram Lohari should be locked up for life. Their mission in life is to kill Shias.Media doing a great job in exposing the feudal mind set.
I agree with the problems we as a nation face in the face of rampant elitism and feudalism. The whole culture and the mind-set must be changed. And the change must come from the very top; the powerful and the privileged.
Will the Oxford educated chairman or the co-chairman of the PPP expel Ms. Bukhari from the party on ethical grounds or is it too much to expect in PAK politics.?
What will be their answers to the PAK women, young and old, their family included, if they failed to do so?
She should be imprisioned and punished
Very well written. We need to make our society more transparent, so that those needed (such as the examples in the last paragraph) can be brought to justice under Pakistani law.