That an Army court of enquiry has completed the investigation into the alleged kidnapping of the IGP Sindh to register an FIR against ousted PM Mian Nawaz Sharif’s son-in-law on October 18, and has not tried to cover up the actions of those responsible, leading to the removal of the officers who ‘acted overzealously’ from their posts, and ordered to hold themselves at the disposal of GHQ, is welcome. That should mean that the next step after a court of inquiry, a court martial, is very much on the cards.
However, there are certain issues that need to be addressed. The first is the level of permission, or even of knowledge, of the ‘overzealous action’. Or are people supposed to assume that members of a disciplined force, handling a matter so obviously sensitive, would act without permission, or without at least informing a superior authority of their actions? Then there is the issue of ‘public outrage’, in response to which the Rangers and the ISI did what they did. The report seems to be trying to minimize the culpability of the officers concerned by saying that they merely reacted to public pressure, but the question arises why these organisations would be approached at all, and why they would feel the need to respond. More mindboggling still is the fact that the public response was virtually absent, which indicates that the action was an initiative rather than a response. The most significant question is whether assessing the public response should not be left to elected officials, which seem to have been left out of the loop.
The report has evoked differing responses. PML(N) supremo Mian Nawaz Sharif has dismissed it as a cover-up. PPP chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari sees it as enhancing the prestige of state institutions. The ruling PTI, which had initially denied that anything had happened, praised the military for its self-accountability, thus washing its hands of any responsibility for either the incident or the inquiry into it. While there has been no unambiguous signal that the military will stay out of politics, it clearly seems that the military sees the incident as one causing ‘misunderstanding between state institutions,’ and not primarily as one violating the constitutional arrangement. https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/11/11/karachi-incident-report/
Karachi incident report: edit in Pakistan Today, Nov 12, 2020
That an Army court of enquiry has completed the investigation into the alleged kidnapping of the IGP Sindh to register an FIR against ousted PM Mian Nawaz Sharif’s son-in-law on October 18, and has not tried to cover up the actions of those responsible, leading to the removal of the officers who ‘acted overzealously’ from their posts, and ordered to hold themselves at the disposal of GHQ, is welcome. That should mean that the next step after a court of inquiry, a court martial, is very much on the cards.
However, there are certain issues that need to be addressed. The first is the level of permission, or even of knowledge, of the ‘overzealous action’. Or are people supposed to assume that members of a disciplined force, handling a matter so obviously sensitive, would act without permission, or without at least informing a superior authority of their actions? Then there is the issue of ‘public outrage’, in response to which the Rangers and the ISI did what they did. The report seems to be trying to minimize the culpability of the officers concerned by saying that they merely reacted to public pressure, but the question arises why these organisations would be approached at all, and why they would feel the need to respond. More mindboggling still is the fact that the public response was virtually absent, which indicates that the action was an initiative rather than a response. The most significant question is whether assessing the public response should not be left to elected officials, which seem to have been left out of the loop.
The report has evoked differing responses. PML(N) supremo Mian Nawaz Sharif has dismissed it as a cover-up. PPP chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari sees it as enhancing the prestige of state institutions. The ruling PTI, which had initially denied that anything had happened, praised the military for its self-accountability, thus washing its hands of any responsibility for either the incident or the inquiry into it. While there has been no unambiguous signal that the military will stay out of politics, it clearly seems that the military sees the incident as one causing ‘misunderstanding between state institutions,’ and not primarily as one violating the constitutional arrangement. https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/11/11/karachi-incident-report/
Published in Pak Media comment and Pakistan