Daily Times

That the Supreme Court (SC) has stayed the bail of the two police officers who stand accused of negligence in the Benazir Bhutto murder case is more than regrettable. Not least because the move appears to have been carried out on a technicality. Though this has prompted PPP co-Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari to seek becoming party to the proceedings.

Back in August of last year, an anti-terrorism (ATC) court meted out a 17-year custodial sentence to former City Police Officer (CPO) Rawalpindi Saud Aziz and then SP Rawalpindi City Khurram Shahzad, respectively. By October of the same year, the Lahore High Court (LHC) had granted bail to the two law enforcement officers. It remains unclear on what grounds a higher court can ‘interfere’ with the verdict passed down by an ATC. Fast-forward to the present and the apex court argues that since the original petitioner has passed way, the bail appeal is rendered ineffective. Never mind that her daughter had become party to the petition.

It is most unfortunate that in the nineteen years since Gen Pervez Musharraf’s military coup the shadow of the Army chief still looms large over Pakistan. Perhaps even more alarming is that a decade of democratic rule has failed to deliver posthumous justice to a twice-elected Prime Minister. And given the slow judicial pace when it comes to particular cases it is disappointing that the new political set-up seems unfazed by this. Preferring to go after the financial jugular of its political rivals. And while the courts’ active pursuit of looted wealth is to be welcomed — this cannot be at the very real expense of turning a blind eye to murder.

Sadly, the Imran Khan government views the two as being mutually exclusive. It has therefore left it to the judiciary to proceed against Musharraf in the both the Benazir case and that of high treason for the 2007 state of emergency. That due process has been served in neither underscores the sheerthe fragility of the country’s fledgling democracy is. A notion reinforced by the fact that three Prime Ministers have been sworn-in during the time that the former President-General has been in exile; with one having been thrown in the slammer for ostensibly putting the latter in the dock.

It should not be left up to the PPP to personally seek justice for Benazir. This should be in the interests of everyone across the political divide. That such an important family is still nowhere nearer to securing accountability simply highlights the country’s desperately slow and flawed criminal justice system.  *

Published in Daily Times, October 9^th 2018.