Need another Judicial Commission

It’s very rare in Pakistan that concluding reports of judicial commissions are made public. Such commissions are meant to cool down the political temperature; commissions’ sessions linger on and finally the reports are shelved to eat dust for an indefinite period. But recently constituted judicial commission to investigate allegations of systematic rigging in 2013 elections not only completed its task within set time period, but also its report has also been published. According to the report, 2013 elections were, by and large, free and fair; no evidence of systematic rigging could be presented/ proved; though irregularities and working style of Election Commission’s untrained and part-time staff might have occasionally tainted the results.

Imran Khan’s PTI has campaigned against 2013 election results for the last two years, though it also formed provincial government in KP as an outcome of same election results. PTI’ campaign peaked to fame and turmoil when it organised a spectacular dharna (sit-in) in Islamabad last August for 126 days. During the dharna it tried its best to instigate the federal government to make it a law and order situation, to let army to intervene and dismiss the federal government. However, all efforts failed, dharna lost its glory in few weeks and later quietly abandoned sensing its apparent failure.

As dharna and judicial commission all are over, it’s time to open some books and accounts to ascertain what was going on in the background. It’s now openly alleged that two heads of country’s prestigious intelligence agency had been helping PTI not only running its election campaign but also during its persistent protest against the federal government. It’s alleged that corporate heads were asked (read forced) to fund the protest campaign. During dharna thousands of people gathered in Islamabad for more than four months, someone must have footed the bill for food, drinks, tents, beds, chairs, music and voice system, power generators, transport, sanitary system and what not. DJ Butt, who played a key role in providing music during dharna to keep it alive, has already been paid tens of millions rupees, and similarly tents rental bill runs in millions.

Now questions to be asked are: Who was (were) behind the dharna and all this protest campaign? Who paid for the expenses which ran in hundreds of millions of rupees? And most importantly from where did all this money come?

If we intend to ignore these questions today, be ready for another cycle of protest on this or that pretext. We may need another judicial commission to cleanse this out.

MASOOD KHAN

Jubail, Saudi Arab