Daily Times

The story has resurfaced again. This time thanks to Edward Snowden’s revelations. The Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) of the US gathered from their intelligence sources that sections of the Pakistan army were plotting to kill the leading human rights activist Asma Jahangir back in the summer of 2012. The story also asserts that they were planning to use ‘militants’ to attack her possibly in India. Why India? So that Pakistan army is not blamed for it.

The world (including Americans) is too scared to talk openly about the criminality that has crept in. Everyone has his/her interests to serve. The Americans want a safe exit from Afghanistan and they want the Pakistan army to play its role to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table. The west needs the Pakistan army to do its bidding! So why care about the lives of Pakistanis being taken away by its army? Who cares about the mutilated bodies of Baloch being dumped in the streets of Quetta or Karachi?

Why did they want to kill Asma Jahangir? She is the most courageous and principled activist in Pakistan. She is a harsh critic of the Pakistan army and its attacks on the citizens. She has been an outspoken critic for decades. The question arises why kill her now? There are a number of conjectures.

The Pakistan army is under relentless international and domestic criticism, particularly since the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011. Ms Jahangir appeared on a television show soon after the raid and called the army high command ‘duffers’ in an emotional expression for their possible involvement in shielding bin Laden. Ms Jahangir also addressed a public meeting in the Islamabad Press Club soon after and repeated how the generals are leading Pakistan towards a suicidal path. She said she does not hold the rank and file of the army responsible. She only holds the generals responsible. In the same public meeting, she also mentioned that she had been receiving threats that the army would ‘try’ to kill her in a staged traffic accident.

Coming back to the larger point, the Pakistan army has been feeling the heat of criticism. The west in general and the US in particular need the Pakistan army to play its role in the Afghanistan endgame. Yet, the world is now looking more towards the civilian leadership of Pakistan. According to senior journalist M Ziauddin, the Pakistan army feels like an “abandoned child”. Even before the bin Laden raid, the passage of the Kerry-Lugar Act greatly irked the Pakistan army and it did not appreciate the American tilt towards the civilians in Pakistan. Hence, the Pakistan army is much more sensitive to the kind of criticism that progressives like Ms Jahangir voice.

Another possible cause could be that the Pakistan army high command brought the ‘Memogate’ against the former Pakistan ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, towards the end of 2011. The whole PPP leadership felt besieged during that period due to its constant tussles with the judiciary. Ms Jahangir stood up to defend Mr Haqqani while a lot of others felt threatened by the Pakistan army and the ISI. The army used its powerful muscles to trap Mr Haqqani and Ms Jahangir stood in the way. Moreover, Ms Jahangir and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan have been regularly highlighting the plight of the Baloch families whose members are kidnapped and killed allegedly by Pakistan’s security establishment.

In June 2012, Ms Jahangir called the press and informed them that she has learnt from a highly credible source that the Pakistan army plans to kill her and then blame someone else for her murder. In her recent interview with a British paper, Ms Jahangir said that the then PPP top leadership contacted the army chief about the threat to her life in 2012. “But we never got a satisfactory answer. We were unable to get to the bottom of it,” she said.

Now the report has come that the DIA believes that elements within the Pakistan army were plotting to kill Ms Jahangir in the summer of 2012. Ms Jahangir told a British paper: “It’s not news but it’s chilling nevertheless to have it confirmed by an independent source.” In her recent statement, Ms Jahangir has called for an inquiry to unearth the assassination plot against her and urged the government to “find the forces who wanted to silence her.”

The plan to kill Asma Jahangir got leaked fortunately. She went public on it and it had to be aborted. Why did the Pakistan army never publicly deny the plan? Why did the ISPR never issue a rebuttal? The truth is that they have no defence to offer. They have been caught many times with their pants down. They do not care about it and the rest of the world does not care about it too much either.

Asma Jahangir has set new standards of bravery, courage and principles. She stands tall in the ambiance of darkness in Pakistan. However, the truth is that hundreds if not thousands of activists are ‘watched’ and harassed by the Pakistan army or its infamous ISI. Rather than focusing on the terrorists who have killed more than 55,000 innocent Pakistanis, the Pakistan army and ISI considers the liberals and progressives in the country as the threat. Terrorists were their ‘boys’. The kind of brutality meted out to the Baloch nationalists is never shown to the Taliban terrorists, while the liberals and progressive people are the real ‘enemies’.

Civil society activists are watched closely both in their professional and personal lives. They are not only watched but often harassed and harmed in whatever overt or covert means possible. In the backdrop of this decades old legacy of the Pakistan army considering its conscientious citizens as ‘enemies of the state’ and ‘traitors’, it comes as no surprise that they planned to kill Asma Jahangir through a covert operation where they do not get blamed for it. This one plan has come to light; thousands of other human rights violations do not get such prominence. A call for investigation into the plot is legitimate. The question is who will conduct the inquiry? What happened to the Benazir Bhutto murder case inquiry? What happened to the UN investigation of Ms Bhutto’s murder? The book by the leading UN investigator will be out soon and its excerpts are clearly pointing the finger at the country’s security establishment. Is anyone listening or doing something about it? Shall we all gulp it down and sleep over it till more murder plans or actual murders are brought to the surface?

The writer has a social science background and can be reached on twitter @FoqiaKhan