Fresh offensive?

On July 1, 2019, the opposition was treated to what might be described as a 'mini-Bloody Monday'. PML-N leader Rana Sanaullah was arrested on the Faisalabad-Lahore Motorway on a controversial drugs smuggling charge, PPP co-Chairperson Asif Zardari was 'arrested' (he is already in custody) on another corruption charge, and PPP's Raja Pervaiz Ashraf was indicted in the rental power plants case. Of the three, the most sinister was the charge and the manner of the arrest of Rana Sanaullah. The Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) has seemingly made out an unbelievable FIR based on the arrest, claiming they acted on a tipoff and Rana Sanaullah not only pointed out the 15 kgs of heroin in his vehicle but, in an obviously contradictory version, scuffled with the arresting ANF team, after which arms were also recovered from his vehicle. Rana Sanaullah was transported to Lahore by the ANF, where he was sent to jail on 14-day judicial remand the following day. The arrest and charge have been roundly condemned by the opposition as a politically motivated targeting of a leading critic of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government. It beggars belief, as Asif Zardari put it to reporters in answer to a question, would a sitting MNA be transporting drugs in his vehicle. Such tactics have been employed in the past too, but mercifully such examples are few and far in between and none resulted in any final conviction. It should be remembered that a drugs smuggling charge carries a possible death sentence. Questions are being raised why the arrest was not photographed, a video made, or any witness produced to substantiate the drugs recovery, although the authorities insist that they have 'sufficient' evidence against the accused. Leader of the Opposition Shahbaz Sharif has laid the blame for this arrest squarely at Prime Minister Imran Khan's door as a mean and vengeful act of victimisation of one of the most effective critics of his government. The Speaker National Assembly has been informed of the arrest of MNA Rana Sanaullah as the authorities are obliged to do, but whether his production order will be issued or not is uncertain, given reported pressure in the past by the government on the Speaker regarding the issue. Imran Khan has instructed the federal cabinet meeting the other day to amend the law on production orders of sitting MNAs charged with crimes. Since the entire thrust of the government's ongoing campaign against the opposition revolves around alleged corruption, money laundering, etc., such an amendment would preclude the authority of parliament and the Speaker from ordering the production of any arrested MNA. Actually the rules lay down that the Speaker should be informed before arresting a sitting MNA, but this has more often than not been practiced in the breach. The opposition has requisitioned a session of the National Assembly to discuss Rana Sanaullah's arrest and the fallout of the recently passed federal budget that has evoked actual strikes or threats of the same from industry, traders and other affected communities.
The government's purpose can also be assessed from the arrest of PML-N supporters in Faisalabad peacefully protesting the arrest of Rana Sanaullah. Mercifully, the protestors were subsequently released and the case quashed by a court, but the incident raises troubling concerns about the PTI government's increasing clampdown on lawful protest, which is a democratic right. The government rails day in and day out that none of the opposition bigwigs will be 'spared' the unwanted attentions of the various authorities engaged in the campaign against the opposition, while in the same breath denying it has anything to do with the wave of cases and now arrests muddying the political horizon. Most critics are wont to ascribe the seemingly desperate striking out at the opposition by the government as a symptom of its failing policies, especially the storm of protest that has broken out in the wake of the draconian, tax-laden federal budget that has already impacted prices across the board. But what the government does not seem to realize is that it is digging a potentially deeper hole for itself by being deaf to the voices protesting against the budget while targeting the opposition on one basis or another, of which the Rana Sanaullah drugs charge takes the cake.