She is surely not the one to avoid a storm if it emanates from her plain talking. But even by her highly flammable standards former president Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), Asma Jehangir on Monday stirred up quite a hornet’s nest. And there was something in it for making quite a few see red: the PPP, the PTI, the higher judiciary and the ubiquitous agencies.
Talking to media at the Lahore High Court, Asma made full use of the opportunity. Here’s a sampling of what she said: “the elevation of Raja Pervez Ashraf, the man deeply involved in the rental power scam, sends a wrong message to the people; “those who created the PTI were behind the conspiracy against the Supreme Court of Pakistan [obliquely referring to the Arsalan Iftikhar case]”. And, “if it was all about writing a letter, the court could have ordered its own Registrar Office to do that.”
Asma Jehangir minced no words on her perception of the new prime minister. “The SC has ruled in several corruption cases, but I am really sure about just one: Raja Pervez Asharaf’s”.
And to her view the motive behind ‘the conspiracy against the judiciary through the Arsalan Iftikhar case’ was to wrap up the democratic setup and to threaten the judges. “And those who created Tehrik-e-Insaf were the conspirators”, said she, adding, “The destruction of one institution can trigger a chain reaction.”
Clearing her own name, she said, she had not conspired against the court for she had never met the linchpin, the real estate tycoon Malik Riaz.
Continuing in the same hard-hitting vein, she said, if the intent was just to write the letter, “the SC could have written to Swiss authorities through its own Registrar”.
The preparations, she said, were underway to impose the martial law by derailing the democratic system.
Of all the people, Asma has taken on the most incensed are the PTI cadre, which is quite evident from the traffic that is being generated on the social media where their reaction is being posted thick and fast.
Asma stirs up a hornet’s nest
