Awan takes swipes at PML-N

KARACHI: Law Minister Babar Awan said on Sunday that law, justice and accountability should be equal for all in the country otherwise there would be allegations of political victimisation.

Appearing at a meet-the-press programme at the Karachi Press Club on Sunday, Awan took a swipe at the main opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

“Who was ruling when the Supreme Court was attacked? And who is ruling in Punjab now when the Lahore High Court suffers turmoil?” he asked in reference to the PML-N. “It is not just a coincidence.”

Without naming the Sharif brothers, Awan said they had preferred to hold dialogue with the then Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee [in the late 1990s] but [today they do not want to talk to disgruntled lawyers. This was an allusion to the 1998 visit by Vajpayee and the subsequent signing of the Lahore Declaration.

“Those who attacked the Supreme Court were given a one-month sentence … but the lawyers who smashed just two windowpanes at the Lahore courts have been booked under the Anti-Terrorism Act,” he said caustically.

About the accountability of politicians and civil and military bureaucrats, Awan said, “I agree with opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar that if parliament has powers to approve the budget of bureaucrats, the military and the judiciary, it also has the authority to hold their accountability.”

Awan also spoke about the former military ruler Pervez Musharraf.

He assured the “Punjab rulers” that the federal government would not create any hurdles in their way if they wanted to try Musharraf’s trial under Article 6 of the Constitution.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 4^th, 2010.