This is going to be personal, no doubt. Former president Asif Ali Zardari was held by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in fake accounts and money laundering cases. He was then shifted to Adiyala Jail, Rawalpindi.
Before being shifted to the jail from NAB custody, signs of his deteriorating health conditions had already been shown as he was unable to walk properly and carry himself well during parliamentary sessions, for which his production orders were issued after a lot of contest and conflict.
But recently, his health deteriorated so much that the jail authorities had to bring him all the way from Rawalpindi to Islamabad’s PIMS hospital. There are speculations about his treatment but one thing is very clear that he is not well.
Unfortunately, governments in Pakistan are in wont of accusing their rivals of corruption, bringing out the political nature of these cases. Regardless of the kind of cases the former president is facing, no logic can justify denying a woman a meeting with her father. Court orders in hand, Aseefa Bhutto Zardari had to wrestle with the guards holding her back while her father watched by, ill and confined to bed. This is not an ideal scene for a democracy.
This incident could have been gone unreported but Ms Aseefa released its details on social media. She also held a press conference in the hospital, flanked by PPP leaders Farooq H Naek and Nayyer Bukhari to explain how rudely she was denied a meeting with her ailing father.
Ms Aseefa said that the police not only held her back but also manhandled her. She said family members and lawyers of the former president were not allowed to meet him in jail. Reportedly, Mr Zardari has been suffering from heart and backbone problems in addition to many other diseases.
PIMS has a history with the former president. When he was jailed for over a decade by PPP’s archrivals PML-N, he was brought to this same hospital for medical treatment and his family members used to come to this place then. Ms Aseefa has grown up seeing his father behind bars and in the hospital for a considerable period of her life. Her mother Benazir Bhutto had seen her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in jail in a very tragic manner. It seems history has taken a queer turn at this time. But the country cannot afford any more tragedies. The impression that accountability has gained a personal colour is not for nothing. The sooner the government lays off this impression, the better. *