City Notes: Sale, use and recovery

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It’s something of a comedown for a former Punjab law minister to be arrested for possession of heroin.

I don’t know about the possession, but being caught. Of course, if the story being told is true, then Rana Sanaullah deserves to be arrested, not so much for possession as for idiocy.

But then, aren’t we supposed to give him some consideration for being mentally retarded? Only someone mentally retarded would carry so much heroin in his own car on a public highway.

The police have long been notorious for being bad at composing a narrative. It seems the ANF is as bad. However, the Minister of State in charge, Sheheryar Afridi, provided indisputable proof of Rana’s guilt, when he said that the ANF is headed by a major general.

However, though it must be clear to the meanest intelligence (even one that accepts the story of the recovery) that Rana must be guilty if arrested by the subordinates of a general, it’s a bit of a comedown for him. The last time he was arrested, when the country was under martial law, he had been arrested by an organisation headed by a lieutenant-general, the ISI.

I wonder if drugs are going to be the new buffalo theft? And I wonder if Rana is going to be charged with using the goods himself. Of course, if the police were to have made a recovery, it would have been of a buffalo. Rana belongs to an urban constituency, but as a lawyer in a district which is an agricultural powerhouse, he must be aware of how rife cattle theft is, in riverine areas like Tandlianwala.

The advantage of cattle theft is that it does not spoil one’s reputation in the village. Heroin possession doesn’t either. And what about rape? Julian Assange was almost extradited from Sweden on one such charge, and previous IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was prevented from running again for President of France in 2011 after he was arrested on such a charge.

The problem with such a charge is that it interferes in one’s personal affairs. The prime minister is firmly opposed to it. On the other hand, he should also be opposed to drugs charges. Especially possession of such large quantities that one has to be a member of a cartel. Now possession of a small quantity for personal use is another matter. Something that deserves to be overlooked in Naya Pakistan.

Besides, any attempt to earn foreign exchange for Pakistan deserves to be encouraged. Let’s assume for a moment that Rana Sanaullah is a mongoloid, then it means that he was probably exporting the drug after importing it, in which case he was earning foreign exchange.

Now we know Musharraf wanted Basant revived so that we could earn foreign exchange, even if it meant little children having their throats cut by glass-coated twine. So for an ANF general to interfere with the earning of foreign exchange is obviously not good for the country.

What was also not good for the country was the loss in the World Cup. One can understand India throwing a match to keep Pakistan out of the semis, but New Zealand? Actually, I don’t think that any plan which depended on Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmad presenting his paternal grandparents’ nikahnama to the umpires during the toss, as going to work. So even though he was himself inspected by the COAS, he won’t be made PM in 2046.

Imran would be the person most satisfied with the result. No young gun breathing down his neck. Well, it seems that Christine Lagarde won’t be breathing down his neck. One of her last acts as IMF head was to approve the $6 billion package for Pakistan, after which she was to go off to head the European Central Bank.

Imran is not impressed by European institutions. He recently said that the British had followed the Riasat-i-Madina. Why am I reminded of the ulema at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries who said that ‘ulil amr’ (those in authority) were the British, and thus jihad against them was invalid? Why does Imran make me feel that he is one of those who is very impressed by the quotation from George Bernard Shaw about the Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him), without asking why Shaw did not follow him.

We’re having earthquakes in California, but not the Big One expected along the San Andreas Fault. Trump doesn’t know whether to blame the quakes on Californians opposing him, or whether to blame it on the Chinese conspiring against him making America great again.