Federal interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan is upset with his party leadership because, as he made clear on Thursday, he has been excluded from consultation process on Panamagate scandal. Nisar wants to know why was he excluded from such consultations, and whether it was because of the stance he had adopted in the party meeting, or for some other reason.
But what puzzles one is why he did not go about seeking clarification directly from the Prime Minister on the quiet instead of making a public spectacle of his displeasure by sounding like the person who hastens to disown his partner in crime caught red handed.
To his critics he seems to be desperately trying to distance himself from Nawaz Sharif in order perhaps to convey the impression that he had no knowledge of the alleged financial ‘shenanigans’ attributed to Nawaz Sharif in the JIT report despite having remained very close to the latter for over 35 years. This defies credulity, say his critics.
The show of numerical strength that came in the form of more than 100,000 ‘followers’ paying respect to Mumtaz Qadri at his funeral — is considered proof by Nisar’s critics of his policy of appeasement towards elements opposed to the Quaid’s idea of Pakistan
And because he was a close associate of Nawaz for more than three decades and also because at least for the last four years he has been serving as the country’s interior minister, the portfolio under which come all crime prevention and investigation agencies, his critics hold him equally guilty of all the crimes mentioned in the JIT report, if what the report has alleged is taken as the whole truth.
His critics hold that Nisar has not so far come out openly in support of the Sharif family on the Panamagate case as did his other cabinet colleagues not known to be as close to the PM as he is. Some circles have assumed it to be a conscious attempt on his part to reinforce the notion that he was not a party to the alleged crimes mentioned in the JIT report.
These circles see his very strong disagreement — first conveyed on his behalf by his ministry’s spokesman and then confirmed by him on Thursday — with his cabinet colleagues’ version of what he is supposed to have said during the last cabinet meeting, which in the words of his colleagues was very supportive of the PM, as another attempt by him to distance himself from his ‘partner’ in the dock.
They also believe that his not so vehement reaction to media reports based on ‘informed sources’ about the ‘candid’ and ‘forthright’ manner in which he is said to have criticised, during the same cabinet meeting, the way the Panamagate case was being handled by the government, denouncing at the same time those who he is reported to have dubbed as ‘sycophants’ too had a purpose — to get himself projected as the only member of the cabinet with a spine.
As rumours flowing out of these developments started doing double-time on the grapevine, his resignation from the cabinet and/or the PML-N appeared, to his detractors, a certainty. However, they believed that Nisar would not show his hand before the final verdict of the SC bench. This was before the interior minister finally poured his heart out on Thursday.
With the press conference, Nisar has proven false speculations that he was perhaps hedging his bets and that he wanted to see which way the SC would go before revealing his hand.
Unlike the usual Pakistani political breed Nisar mostly shuns media and frequent public appearances. But whenever he wants to talk to the media he does it with convincing aplomb. Still, many of his critics believe his tenure as the interior minister was no better than his predecessor’s. At times, in their opinion, he had performed even worse than Senator Rehman Malik, nicknamed Inspector Clouseau by our late friend Khalid Hasan.
To his detractors Nisar’s biggest failure as interior minister was letting Imran-Qadri Azadi rally of August 14, 2014, to turn towards Aabpara crossing located right next to the Red Zone rather than sealing the turning and with the help of the full might of capital’s police force guiding the Azadi march towards Faisal Mosque. The two, Imran and Qadri, took Nisar for a ride promising not to enter the Red Zone but finding the entry points too inadequately guarded they led the crowd into the restricted area without any resistance from law enforcement agencies.
There is a long list of his failures that his critics wave in the face of anybody who would question their motives in criticising Nisar’s performance. This list includes letting one person armed with a sub-machinegun and accompanied by a woman take the capital hostage for almost five hours in August 2013; the Rawalpindi sectarian clash of November the same year was nothing less than an interior ministry disaster of horrendous proportions; the inquiry commission set up by the SC to probe the August 8, 2016, explosion that ripped through Civil Hospital, Quetta, killing an estimated 74 persons most of whom were lawyers had slammed the interior minister and in its findings, the report stated that the federal interior ministry lacked a ‘sense of ministerial responsibility’; even the show of numerical strength of over 100,000 by the ‘followers’ of Mumtaz Qadri on the occasion of his burial is considered by Nisar’s critics as his policy of appeasement towards elements opposed to the Quaid’s idea of Pakistan. In their considered opinion, Nisar spent his time in the ministry chasing shadows like Aiyan Ali and Dr Asim Hussain instead of going after jet black terrorists. They also find rather intriguing his active defence of persons like Maulana Aziz of Lal Masjid who delivers hate speeches and whose followers are known to have pledged their allegiance to ISIS.
The writer is a senior journalist based in Islamabad. He served as the Executive Editor of Express Tribune until 2014
Published in Daily Times, July 28th , 2017.