This August 17 marked thirty years since a C-130 carrying the then military ruler General Ziaul Haq and three top generals - chairman joint chiefs of staff committee General Akhtar Abdul Rehman, chief of the general staff Lieutenant-General Mohammad Afzaal - and the US Ambassador Arnold Raphel and his military attaché, Brigadier General Herbert Wasson, went down soon after takeoff from the Bahawalpur airport, killing all 29 people aboard. So far, the crash remains shrouded in mystery. What is known is that a report prepared by a team of Pakistani and American experts found no technical reason for the crash, concluding that the "only other possible cause of the accident is the occurrence of a criminal act or sabotage." In the absence of technical failure that, of course, had to be the obvious conclusion. Which leads to the next logical question, who could have done it? It remains unanswered, leading to a raft of conspiracy theories.
Notably, soon afterwards the Nawaz Sharif government set up an inquiry commission to hold investigations into the incident. But its result was never made public. A press report explains the whys and whos of the sordid story. In a secret report made a few years later, it says, the commission accused elements in the military of having deliberately obstructed its investigations. Unfortunately, this is not the only example of a failure to find the smoking gun, and also of wilful attempts at cover-up. The man who fired the fatal shots at the country's first prime minister Liaqat Ali Khan was lynched to death right at the scene of murder, apparently, as part of a plan to protect the real perpetrators. Good-faith investigations, perhaps, could still have led to the culprits, but no such attempt was made. It has been more than decade when the two-time prime minister Benazir Bhutto was murdered along with several others around her. Although her party's government instituted an expensive UN inquiry into her assassination, it came to nothing. The reasons are all too obvious. Although that commission's terms of reference did not include fixing of responsibility, it was denied access to certain powerful circles. The case since has lingered on in courts, giving little hope of holding those behind the crime to account. Then there are several cases where inquiry commissions made their report, which were not allowed to be made public. The Hamoodur Rehman Commission's report on the cataclysmic events of 1971 that culminated in the country's breakup was not released until it found its way into the Indian press. The January 2013 Abbottabad Commission report on the circumstance surrounding the death of Osama bin Laden is yet to be made public. The January 2012 judiciary inquiry report on the brutal murder of journalist Saleem Shahzad remains concealed. The judiciary inquiry report on the Model Town killings was made known only on the Lahore High Court's order.
This has gone on because ruling elites' fear of being exposed in the public eye for their acts of omission and commission, or the use of high-handed means simply to suppress adverse opinion. This must come to a stop. The Supreme Court needs to step in and order publication of all the inquiry commissions' reports so those concerned know irresponsible behaviour carries consequence.
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