The decision to send a reference on what has been perceived by majority of citizens of Pakistan as judicial murder of ZAB is a correct decision, irrespective of the political motives intended to be achieved. One of the judges Nasim Hassan Shah in his own book has confessed that this injustice was done under pressure. These former judges, who succumbed to pressures and failed to deliver justice, had no business to serve as judges. This country has suffered a lot because of wrongs done by few men who, having forcibly taken over power, then went on to pursue their agendas irrespective of the consequences.
We owe it to posterity to rectify mistakes of the past. The prestige of few former heads of certain institutions is not more sacrosanct than our national honour, justice, rule of law and collective national interests. We have allowed minions to distort Quaid’s vision for a democratic welfare state which he very clearly spelled out on 11 August 1947. If these judges had done justice to Maulvi Tamizuddin, Pakistan would not have been perpetually raped in the name of security and defending our ideological frontiers.
Men like Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, the bureaucracy and political opportunists, who have always played power politics were responsible for dismemberment of Pakistan. It was Ayub Khan who reduced majority of former East Pakistan when he imposed One Unit. Zia-ul-Haq and Musharraf are responsible for religious intolerance, extremism, ethnicity and politics of violence. However bitter the truth may be, history must never be allowed to be distorted as it has been by the self-proclaimed protectors of Pakistans ideology. It is they who have allowed zeros to become heroes.
The pictures of merchants of justice who adorn the walls of our superior judiciary must be cleansed of these stains, so that others may learn a lesson. Justice must be done even if heavens were to fall. It is time that merit prevails in Pakistan and those who have wronged this country in the past be made to pay for their sins even if they are dead. It is only if justice, morality and ethics prevail, will we prevent the flight of capital and flight of human resources and curtail rampant corruption which pose a threat to our survival as a sovereign independent state.
MALIK TARIQ ALI
Lahore
