ISLAMABAD:
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz on Monday issued a seven-page charge-sheet, terming former president Pervez Musharraf a most corrupt, callous, immoral and ruthless ruler and accused him of illegally taking over power in Pakistan on October 12, 1999, and committed serious crimes against the Constitution, the state and the people of Pakistan.
The charge-sheet, which contains 17 allegations against the former president, holds him responsible for various crimes allegedly committed during his almost nine-year tenure, including the imposition of martial law on October 12, 1999, Kargil misadventure, using the army for his personal causes, declaring war against Pakistanis, blackmailing through NAB, assassination of Nawab Akbar Bugti, disappearance of people and conspiracy in Balochistan.
Moreover, killing people in Lal Masjid, abductions, attack on the judiciary, cronyism, nepotism, corruption, favouritism, promulgation of NRO, May 12 and October 18, 2007 bloodsheds are also among the ‘crimes’ contained in the charge-sheet.
PML-N demanded of the government to make necessary arrangements to bring back the former president through Interpol and ensure his trial under Article 6 of the Constitution for acts of high treason.
The PML-N also called for constituting a commission to probe into his misdeeds.
The charge-sheet said: “It is high time the former dictator is tried, otherwise Pakistan will never be able to get rid of imprudent, self-righteous Napoleonic idiocy of military regimes.”
PML-N aims to “stop forever the violations of the Constitution and ensure that no one ever thinks of imposing martial law in the country”.
The party recalled that Musharraf imposed martial law twice, subverted the Constitution and violated the oath taken by him as army chief.
Accusing the former president of keeping “the elected prime minister behind bars, illegally detaining judges of the superior courts with their family members and imposing dictatorship at gunpoint”, the charge-sheet said: “This way, he acted against the Constitution in 1999, overthrew an elected government and dissolved assemblies, thus being liable to be tried for high treason under Article 6 of the Constitution.”
He planned and undertook the Kargil misadventure, concealing it from the elected government, sacrificing some 800 officers and men of the army in the process, it said, adding that he got Nawab Akbar Bugti killed in “cold blood”.
The Lal Masjid, it said, was attacked on the pressure of external powers, resulting in the death of hundreds of innocent boys and girls.
The charge-sheet alleged that Musharraf “abducted and sold Pakistani citizens and the number is in thousands and nobody...knows these people’s whereabouts”.
Alleging that he illegally deposed the Supreme Court Chief Justice on March 9, 2007, subjected him to torture and unlawfully confined him and his family.
The PML-N also called for holding an independent commission to inquire into the matters which he admitted in his book named ‘In the Line of Fire’ with special reference to revelations that he had received a handsome amount for the war against terror and handing over the people to the United States, who are known as missing persons.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 12th, 2010.
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