In the year 2000, I was serving in the newly formed NAB. The cases I especially remember from that time were those against Mr Tiwana, ex-Chairman PIA, and Khawaja Asif, the gentleman who frequently stands up in parliament, puffs out his chest, and makes emphatic statements, often based on lies. Lt Col Obaidullah was given the task of interrogating them, and he cleared them both. Before they left NAB custody, Chairman NAB, Gen Amjad, desired to see them. On his way to see the Chairman, who was busy, Khawaja Asif had to stop by in my office for a while. That was the first I met him. He was especially appreciative of how decently he was treated by Col Obaid.
On his way out, he saw me again and I also met Tiwana. Both told me that Gen Amjad had apologised to them on behalf of NAB for having put them through investigations on erroneous evidence. They were incredulous, but I was not. At that time, the conduct of most generals was informed by courtesy and decency. Sadly, those days seem so far away now.
But the case I most especially remember was that of Ishaq Dar, the biggest crook in the land at that time. He, too, was interrogated by Obaiduallah who was a rare combination of high intelligence, winning courtesy, great integrity, and moral courage. He soon had Ishaq Dar eating out of one hand, while with the other he drew out from him such a comprehensive confession, that this would have been enough to put the entire Sharif clan behind bars. This was the first time that prospects of a great crook paying for his extortions shone bright.
But this brightness dulled when Malik Riaz Hussain of Bahria, the chief crook of his own era, began recommending names for NAB Chairmen to Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, the two other mega crooks of the age. One of these recommendations was for Chaudhary Qamar Zaman, a civil service officer, to be made Chairman NAB, which was accepted. Zaman too had been under investigation for corruption by NAB when I was there. His protestations of innocence were accompanied by copious tears, but in the end, he was let off for lack of conclusive evidence. It was he who prepared grounds for a legal technicality, on the basis of which Dar and the Sharif family would eventually fly the coop.
It was Qazi Faez Isa as a justice of the Supreme Court, who made use of these technical grounds to help spring these crooks and to bury the proceedings of the case against them permanently. This was the first time I heard of Qazi, and I never took my eyes off him since. I was utterly convinced that the man had been paid off for the service rendered. And this payment soon showed itself in the shape of his three flats which were uncovered in London. His defence in this case truly exhibited his shamelessness. The crux of his argument was that though the average Pakistani must show both the money trail for such transactions, but also satisfy the Court how this money was earned, this rule did not apply to the judges. This was so much like the principal argument of the generals of today, emphasizing yet again that it did not really matter if the one wore a bemedalled uniform, and the other a black gown. What truly mattered was the blackness of the heart that beats under the black gown or behind the medals!
If there should be any doubt about the services Qazi Isa has rendered on to the Sharif family, even where these militated directly against the cause of Pakistan and its people, one needs merely to examine his conduct as Chief Justice. The trail of his tenure is like the slime which marks the slithering progress of a caterpillar. After he is gone, he shall be remembered for his stench and his slime, and little else.
And he will also be remembered for his merciless bullying and badgering of Dr Sameena Malik, rector of the Islamic University, when he forced her to appear in front of him, in her wheelchair on Sep 20, 2024, and the indignities he heaped on her while driving her out of his court. A rabid dog could not have done better.
In all ages, mothers have given birth to deformed children, but none was born so severely deformed as Qazi Isa. None was born with such consuming hypocrisy as him. And none with his shamelessness.
There is a peeve constantly settled on the Qazi’s countenance. His smile, instead of spreading beatitude on his face, gives the impression that he is straining to break the sound barrier. Sarina Isa, often given to prowling like a rabid lynx, though, is much more relaxed now. Her sound barrier broke when she no longer had to account for how her funds were accumulated, or how these were transferred to London to buy their flats. Well-digested ‘haram’ rests well in the stomach!
That Qazi Isa, Bajwa, Asim Munir, Zardari, the Sharif Brothers, Sultan Sikander Raja, and Mohsin Naqvi were born in the same generation, may have been a coincidence, but the way they have worked in sync to take Pakistan down seems more the stuff of demonic design. There is a view that there was no such design to take down the state, and what was being mistaken for this was pure incompetence. However, time and again incompetence makes them fall flat on their faces, but the moment they are up, having dusted their clothes, they begin right where they had left off. This seems more like resolve to me. Their list of egregious crimes is long, but the crimes themselves were simple, and anyone should have been able to conclude that these would do in the state. They began by overthrowing a legitimate government on instructions of a foreign power. Then they handed the state over to a gang of internationally acclaimed thugs and pimps. This alone would have been enough to bring down a tottering state, but they allowed their pimps to steal the little Pakistan had left, which was like them running off with the last tank of oxygen left to a dying man. And to keep them in power, they unleashed on the people a spate of abductions, torture, house break-ins, illegal imprisonments, and murders, such that we had never seen. They then resorted to election rigging so shameless that even the worst dictatorships would be ashamed of. And now they are trying to destroy the Constitution on the strength of members of the legislature illegitimately put in parliament by them. Surely, behind all this must be a design to undo the state and throw it on the ash heap of history?
No matter what the verdict on this may turn out to be, in purely venomous conduct, no one man in the history of Pakistan has done more harm to it than Qazi Isa. No one can touch him in his commitment to the vile and the wicked, and none can match him in sheer resolve to do harm to the state. Never did a snivelling little runt like him constitute such urgent and lethal danger to his country.
Email: saeedakhtarmalik85@gmail.com