Who killed President General Zia-ul-Haq remains a mystery, at least for his son Ijaz-ul-Haq. He is certain it was sabotage; a missile in addition to the paralyzing nerve gas that put the plane crew out of action hit the C-130 he was flying. But the army top brass, whose chief the late President was, did not go beyond a superficial inquiry, he complained.
Ijaz-ul-Haq even accused President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, nominally, and ex-COAS General Mirza Aslam Beg comprehensively, for failure to uncover the conspiracy into the killing of President Zia and about a score of other generals and senior military officers on that sultry August afternoon in 1988.
Ijaz-ul-Haq noted a certain contradiction in the words and actions of General Beg in the wake of the crash of C-130. Beg, he said, tried to put off the autopsy of the bodies of the victims, and when Ijaz decided to sue the manufacturing company of C-130 the American lawyer he had engaged backed out. He also cited Justice Shafi-ur-Rehman who went to Multan to inspect the crashed C-130 and found the door, possibly hit by the missile, missing from the debris which was supposed to be in the safe custody of the Pakistan Air Force, Ijaz-ul-Haq was guest of Geo's 'Jawabdey' programme.
If Ijaz-ul-Haq was trying to rewrite history, prominent nuclear scientist Dr Samar Mubarakmand too was busy doing the same. He was unfolding the pages of Pakistan's nuclear history by giving a rundown on who prepared and carried out the May-28, 1998 tests at Chaghai. According to him Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan was a mere spectator, invited to the momentous event by the then chairman of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. In possibly the most elaborately explained interview on the country's nuclear programme and its development in Geo's 'Capital Talk' Dr Mubarakmand made the unequivocal claim that the country's nuclear programme is not being rolled back. On the day he said so, another person was also saying the same thing: the other was Vice Chief of Army Staff General Yousuf, who claimed that instead of rollback, the programme was rolling on. These statements coincided with the test firing of Shaheen II, the nuclear-capable solid fuel intermediate range missile. Dr. Samar Mubarakmand also dispelled the impression, created by an American journalist, that the United States has fixed codes of the Pakistani atomic weapons to de-activate them should these fall into terrorists' hands.
Now that Pakistan is being accused of nuclear proliferation by the West, one could ask in return for a stop to export of vulgarity to Pakistan. Right now the Pakistani society is under cultural invasion, thanks to the uncensored no-holds-barred onslaught through the host television channels. Day in and day out Pakistanis are being exposed to entertainment fare tends to undermine the ideological foundations of Pakistan. Is there anybody who is supposed to monitor and check what is being beamed onto our people, undeterred by the hollow slogans of free flow of information.
An exceedingly engaging TV programme of the week was the telephone interview of Zafar Iqbal Warriach, by the ARY anchorman Dr Shahid Masood Warriach, a member of the National Assembly from Rahim Yar Khan, who resigned from his seat in the Parliament the other day, possibly marked the emerging trend in the politics of the coming days. A couple of years back a politicians of Warriach's position would have gone unsung, but not any more. Truly, medium is the message and television is going to rule the roost.
Zee-Cine Awards extravaganza at Dubai, was probably most colourful function of the outgoing week. Pakistani artistes-Reema, Resham, Javid Sheikh and Omer Sharif were invited to it for the first time, and their performance was fantastic, particularly of the last one.
Women's International Day was another programme that attracted attention of the TV channels. Meanwhile, a three-episode drama on Kashmir, one by each of the five stations, is being prepared. The product of Islamabad Station, 'Dar-Andaz', written by Iqbal Hasan and produced by Farhatullah, will come on air in April. The product of Lahore station, which is written by Yunus Javaid and produced by Saleem Tahir, has already been telecast Islamabad Station's 'Aatsh' was shown in 10 episodes. The new serial from Islamabad would be 'Ajal' to be released on April 12.