Kamran Shafi

The writer is a retired army officer and a freelance columnist

kshafi1@yahoo.com.uk

Immediately after ordering the Sindh police to belt up if they had nothing of consequence to say, an order which was not followed incidentally, our Interior Minister opened his own mouth rather wide. "We'll crack this case (poor old Danny Pearl's, of course) within 48 hours", the General declared. Well, it's been 192 hours or thereabouts since that particular bluster and there is no sign of anything resembling "cracking" the case! The poor man is still in captivity somewhere in the "soft" country of Pakistan, his poor pregnant wife is still worrying her heart out for him. Why talk big, specially when you are the Chief Law and Order Man Who Is Mainly Responsible for Making Pakistan a Soft State, please? This, yet more hot air from the Minister has embarrassed us yet again. So what else is new?

But, let those who do not listen, who do not read, who do not care, be. Let me try this: Can't the abductors of Mr Pearl please look into their hearts and see if there is a little, very little human kindness lurking somewhere in there? Can't they at least, please, show some little consideration for the sad young woman who carries his unborn baby? Since they pretend to be Mujahids, can't they, please, rise above themselves for once and try and be a little, very little, like the good Muslims they say they are? Can they, please, show some little magnanimity? I beg them.

Verbatim press note of the Director Public Relations, National Assembly Secretariat, as published in the press on February 16th, 2002: "I am directed to say that while the meeting of the Ad hoc Public Accounts Committee was in session (on Friday, February 15th), considering the cases relating to Islamabad capital territory, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Ex-Federal Minister along with 8 to 10 people including members of the Press and photographers walked unannounced into the ongoing meeting. The session was interrupted, and he insisted on an immediate hearing. The night before he had telephoned PAC Chairman HU Beg at his residence about the misuse of telephone and transport by his staff and him as reported in the Press.

"Mr Beg advised him that if he had any complaint about the Press reporting or the veracity of the audit report, he was free to go to the Press, and also make a representation in writing to the PAC so that the matter could be reviewed, if necessary. Mr Shujaat demanded an apology from the committee. The chairman categorically told him that the PAC would not extend any apologies as the recommendation of the committee were (sic) based on the facts presented to it by the ministry concerned.

"Shujaat Hussain accused the Ad hoc PAC of being partial towards the armed forces and civil bureaucracy. He was clearly informed that the decisions of the committee were based on an unbiased and impartial hearing consideration (sic) of all cases relating to all parties concerned there with, and decisions are taken on merit as well as facts represented before it. Shujaat Hussain gave a letter to the committee about the matter. The chairman informed him that the letter would be considered by the PAC, and he might be asked to appear for hearing, if considered necessary."

The DPR was referring to the previous day's proceedings of our Public Accounts Committee, Mr H U Beg (former CSP) commanding; in attendance, ranking member Lieutenant General (Retd,) Talat Masood, formerly of the Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Pakistan Army, and a man who knew me well once upon a time; and several other retired bureaucrats of the Islamic Republic, members. The incident the DPR was referring to had to do with Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain of the House of Zahoor, Gujrat, yet another candidate for Prime Minister of Pakistan and one of the PML L's - which is short for "Like-minded" according to themselves and before they dragged the great Quaid-e-Azam's name in the mud yet again and called their faction of the ill-starred and much disgraced Muslim League, the PML (QA) - barging into the Committee Room situated within the precincts of our National assembly, several fat Gujratia toughs (referred to as 'bodyguards' in the press) most certainly with weapons hidden up their shalwars, glowering at his side.

The great Chaudhry yelled and screamed at the "terrified" Committee, demanding that it apologise to him for asking the ministries of Interior and Labour to recover an amount of 300,000 rupees or thereabouts from him (less than chicken feed for the multi-billionaire Chaudhry, actually) for misuse of vehicles and telephone when he was a minister in the worthless government of the worthless Nawaz Sharif. Why was the Committee going on about the Labour Ministry, Chaudhry Sahib demanded to know, when he "held additional charge of the ministry for only four months without even entering its offices"!! As an aside, here is a former federal minister, darling of the present military government please note, admitting before the world that for four whole months he did not even "enter" the offices of a ministry at whose head he was placed. Anyone need further proof of Nawaz Sharif's government being completely, totally worthless? As for his trespasses in the Ministry of Interior, the Chaudhry fulminated further, saying, "Why are you asking me? The Secretary of the Ministry has to answer".

Reports in the press referred particularly to the fact that the Chaudhry "exchanged harsh arguments with the PAC Chairman H U Beg, and members, particularly Lt-Gen Talat Masood (Rtd) as the Committee had outrightly rejected his plea to seek excuse on its decision". He is reported to have shouted at Talat Masood: "You are a retired army man, and hence you are adamant to my request being a politician". Ungrateful wretch, is all I can say. Who, pray, has been shielding him and his clan from being NABbed all the time that this 'military' government has been in power? Who, pray, has helped his close relatives to ascend to the posts of District Nazims in three important districts of the Punjab? What has the poor army done to deserve Chaudhry Sahib's stick?

More on this sordid affair: One of the members likened this assault by the Chaudhry and his men as "High-handedness of the same magnitude as the storming of the Supreme Court masterminded by Nawaz Sharif". This is a clear case of contempt of court, if you ask me. This is the worst contempt of our highest court ever. How dare this "ad-hoc" Committee, made up of unelected odds and sods, compare itself with the Honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan? How dare they compare this fracas with the assault on the Honourable Court, when My Lords the Justices had to vacate their court-room (no less) when the Lahori (and Gujrati!) goondas, among whom were seen the now almost-rehabilitated Saif-ur-Rehman and Pakistan's foreign-minister-in-waiting, Mushahid (Mandela) Hussain, attacked the apex court? How dare they? Will Their Lordships please take note and launch suo moto proceedings against the ad-hoc PAC?

And more: Three days after the first press story on this quite disgraceful matter, which had also said that a report had been made to the CE's Secretariat, there was another: that Mr H U Beg, CSP, has said that all is forgiven and forgotten, that the Chaudhry has "apologised", that there is now no need to file charges with the CE's Secretariat as Mr Beg had first announced, that the Committee would "review" the case against Shujaat. When pressed to disclose when and in what manner the mighty Shujaat had "apologised", Mr Beg is reported to have said, "before he (the Chaudhry) left the Committee Room (on the day of the occurrence)". Well, that was news to everyone, unless the apology was transmitted telepathically to Beg and was then filed away in the "Pending" tray in his bureaucratic head, to surface when he searched his mind's memory bank three days later. Unless the apology was made in code language that only H U Beg and Shujaat can understand. What poppycock is this, please? If Shujaat had apologised, and was forgiven, why was the press note reproduced above, issued late that same night?

Quite predictably, the lowest staff of the NA Secretariat have been punished - security assistants and junior assistants - of grade 11 and below. Pakistan Paindabad. Another indicator that ours is a "soft" country, indeed, when a highfaluting committee set up by the military government is disgraced and humiliated by one of its own and nothing is done about it other than making scapegoats of the weakest, the most powerless. Another indicator that whilst so much can still be done to retrieve the present situation, nothing will be done; and that we will continue to spiral ever downward. It is yet another indicator that ours is a sad and sorry country headed for complete and total disaster, so help us God.

Why doesn't H U Beg state the truth - that he and his "Committee" are to the Chaudhry from Gujrat what the security wallahs are to the PAC? The only way the PAC can redeem some little of its honour is by resigning en masse. It won't, of course, for Pakistan is a "soft" country. Everything goes. Mitti pao, Sirji.