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 Ant-Narcotics Force (ANF) has seemingly concocted 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 a 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, that a sitting MNA would be
transporting drugs in his vehicle. Such low tactics have been employed in the
past too, but mercifully such examples are few and far 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 on 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.
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