24 Dec 2018 is a day which may well decide whether it is Pakistan that is to survive, or the grand masters of mega theft who fairly cleaned it up before being hauled up to the courts.
Nawaz Sharif is back in jail on one count. His sentence is a mere mollycoddle compared to the scale of his crimes viewed in light of the office of trust held by him when these crimes were committed.
In a second case he has gone scot free! Whether this was because of excessive judicial kindness or incompetence, deserves to be investigated.
It also needs to be investigated whether a fraction of the theft committed by him and his family could have sufficed to give clean drinking water to the poor of Lahore, and if so, how many hundreds of thousands could have escaped the sentence of hepatitis as a result.
It was on the same day that the report of the “Omni” JIT broke cover with its presentation in the Supreme Court. We all knew about the dedication of effort which went into the debasement of Pakistan by the two essential signatories to the “Charter of Democracy”. Yet only when the contents of this report began to get registered did its sheer “professionalism” become apparent.
There is a direct line connecting the deaths of helpless children in Thar to the belly of Zardari which defies satiation.
The scale of plunder visited on Pakistan by Zardari and the Sharifs can only be brought into balance by the fulsomeness of their sycophants standing unabashedly behind them in a state of willful blindness, while denying their sins against the state. The “loyalty” of these sell outs can only be upstaged by those considered “honest” in their ranks–men like Chaudhary Nisar, Malik Ahmad Khan, Raza Rabbani, Aitzaz Ahsan, Farhatullah Babar etc–men who for years had ringside seats witnessing the rape of their country by their “leaders”, but could never once pluck up the courage to speak a single word against the outrages being so brazenly committed against their country!
It is this attitude which helps one understand the collective character of the people of the subcontinent where personal interest has always trumped the interest of the state. This is what explains Raja Ambhi of Taxilla sending gifts to Alexander [while he was still fighting in Sogdiana] and inviting him to India where they would together subdue Porus!
This, with pitiful exceptions, is the story of 3000 years of the history of the subcontinent. And this explains the rape of Pakistan by the Zardari-Sharif combine to the accompaniment of applause by an army of camp followers who continue to justify it on account of “democracy”! The first chinks in this solid wall of moral degradation began appearing on our horizon in 2017. The men most responsible for this were Imran Khan with whom patriotism was always an article of faith: our Supreme Court led by Mr Justice Saqib Nisar, who seems to have decided to stand by the call of his conscience after taking cognizance of what was happening all around him; and General Bajwa whose laid back manner obviously hides a higher commitment.
If Pakistan turns a corner and moves from mere survival on to a trajectory of hope and progress, the debt of gratitude owed by our children and grandchildren to these three men may be immense indeed.
One of these three is due to retire in a fortnight. To say that Mr Justice Saqib Nisar will be missed, would be an understatement. He and his brother Justices could not have brought justice to the many millions craving it. But they did the second-best thing. They brought alive the dream of justice and its possibility. And Justice Nisar came to symbolize this dream. He gave to the common man a consciousness of his rights: and to the utterly powerless, he gave the confidence to knock at the doors of the supreme court, walk into it, look the C.J in the eye, and say his piece; while he gave to the most powerful, cause to shudder in their boots. No one man will ever be able to do this again. But a hope lingers that of those who follow him, some of them men of excellent repute, a few at least will keep alive the flame of justice and hope lit by Justice.
Saqib Nisar.
But just before he walks into the sunset let me make bold to make a few requests of him:
–Please stifle the power of “stay orders” which accompany the unfortunate from the cradle to the grave.
–Set in motion JITs to investigate NAB, the NICL, and the Islamabad Safe City cases so that Chaudhary Qamar Zaman, the greatest facilitator of grand larceny will also be brought to the book.
–Give a definitive judgement on the presentation of forged documents to the S.C in the Avenfield Apartments case, so that no one dares to fall back on such devices in the future.
–Put in place the building blocks of a law whereby cash and properties built through mega corruption, become properties of the state–i. e properties of people like Malik Riaz Hussain, Asif Zardari, the Sharif family, Khwaja Saad Rafique etc.