EDITORIAL: The PML(N)-led coalition government continues to make a mockery of the rule of law, keeping former prime minister and founding chairman of the main opposition party, PTI, Imran Khan along with second tier leaders and activists behind bars on charges widely believed to be trumped up.
On Saturday, after Khan and his spouse were acquitted in the shameful Iddat case, the last impediment to their freedom, the National Accountability Bureau arraigned them in a new Toshakhana case, securing their eight-day physical remand from an accountability court.
Meanwhile, a Lahore police team arrived in Adiala jail to ‘re-arrest’ Khan on fresh terrorism charges in 12 cases out of a total of 16 that have been registered with various police stations in connection with last year’s May 9 violence, including the attack on the Lahore Corps Commander’s House.
Khan has already been indicted in more than 150 cases, including the May 9 incident. Yet a slew of fresh cases have been launched on the same account, that too after a delay of well over a year. In fact, the government has made no secret of its intention to keep him incarcerated for as long as possible.
A few days ago, Prime Minister’s adviser Rana Sanaullah said in a TV talk show that in the event he gets exonerated in the present legal cases, more cases will be initiated against him. Going a step further Planning and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal had averred keeping Imran Khan in jail for the next five years was necessary for the country’s economic progress and stability.
If it was not shocking enough to hear prominent members of the main ruling party openly admitting the government needed to implicate its principal political rival in fabricated legal cases, it has run amok to get rid of the PTI following the recent Supreme Court verdict in the reserved seats case.
Already, the single largest party in the National Assembly, the PTI is on course to becoming the biggest party in both houses of Parliament. In its last ditch brazen attempt to deny the PTI its rightful gains, Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar has announced the government’s decision to impose a ban on the party, and seek legal action against Imran Khan, ex-president Arif Alvi, and former National Assembly speaker Qasim Suri under Article 6 of the Constitution.
The matter, he said, will be referred to the Supreme Court. This only goes on to show that the government with its questionable mandate and having lost most of its legal battles against Khan now is in a state of panic.
The ill-conceived move has been roundly condemned by independent observers and politicians such as former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, and Farhatullah Babar whose party, the PPP, is a partner in the ruling coalition. In a post on X platform Babar termed as “rubbish and unsustainable” banning of a political party or carrying out trial of a political leader for treason, which could compound the existing political crisis.
As he aptly put it, “the US democracy will sustain its current crisis. Pakistani democracy is unlikely to sustain self-imposed crisis”.
However, the PPP secretary general, Nayyar Bukhari sought to distance the party from statement by Raza Rabbani and Babar by claiming that the party has yet to discuss this issue and these statement are personal opinion of the two gentlemen. Whosoever advised the government to try and ban the PTI is not its well-wisher.
Most probably, it will face embarrassment in the Supreme Court. It can also lose whatever is left of its public support for doing grievous harm to this ever struggling democracy.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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