The best deterrant: PPP presses for trial of Musharraf and aides

Babar says those who subverted the Constitution should be punished.

HYDERABAD:

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has renewed calls for the treason trial of former army chief General (retd) Pervez Musharraf and his collaborators, a senior party leader said on Saturday.

Senator Farhatullah Babar, who also serves as a spokesman for the president, said that if democracy and the Constitution had to be protected, those who dismissed an elected government, imprisoned a prime minister and subverted the Constitution should be punished along with their collaborators.

The PPP leader was speaking at a function organised by the PPP youth wing in Hyderabad on the eve of a black day to denounce General Ziaul Haq’s military takeover on July 5, 1977.

“The message of July 5 is that no dictator must go unpunished and no compromise be made with militants and extremists,” he said.

If the subversion of the Constitution was not punished now, it will set up a dangerous precedent that would embolden future dictators to do whatever they please.



He called upon political forces to join hands to defeat militants and extremists who were the worst enemies of democracy and had threatened the federation, our way of life, and wished to impose their political ideology through brute force.

By June 2013, Pakistan had signed 13 peace deals and conducted nine military operations with the objective of expelling or registering the foreign militants and stopping the use of our territory for operation against other countries, said the PPP leader. In return, while we gave amnesty to the militants they never kept their side of the bargain.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 7^th, 2013.