Daily Times

It was only a matter of time before the issue of an alleged foreign conspiracy to throw out the previous Imran Khan administration reached a boiling point. Because all institutions that probed the charge, including the military and the foreign office, found no evidence of a conspiracy whatsoever, Imran Khan and his followers continue to dismiss any opinion that does not agree with them as just that – opinions. So no surprise that the boiling point has come at last. The military is right to respond that what is being dismissed as its opinion is in fact a position reached after weighing all relevant evidence. And it’s another point, of course, that opinions that agree with the PTI’s are not dismissed as partisan at all.

It seems the best thing to do is to order the judicial inquiry that PTI is calling for, even though that option throws up a couple of questions that must first be answered. One, as PML-N is pointing out, why didn’t Imran Khan order a judicial inquiry while he was still prime minister? He’s clearly convinced that his administration was undone by an elaborate, US-funded conspiracy, and he claimed to have evidence for it, and it is he that is not going to be satisfied with anything less than a formal judicial inquiry; so it would have made a lot of sense if he had ordered it there and then. And two, isn’t the honourable court also going to confer with the very institutions that have already delivered their verdicts; more than once? It’s very difficult, then, for it to arrive at a conclusion that is completely opposite to their findings. Plus, considering PTI’s actions since Imran Khan’s unceremonious ouster, it’s very much possible that its adherents start attacking the legitimacy of the courts as well, as they have already done on occasion if it does investigate this matter and does not agree with PTI. Yet these matters will not really be settled till there is a judicial inquiry. Therefore, to put this matter to rest more than anything else, perhaps that is just what the government should order.Let’s Have That Judicial Inquiry It was only a matter of time before the issue of an alleged foreign conspiracy to throw out the previous Imran Khan administration reached a boiling point. Because all institutions that probed the charge, including the military and the foreign office, found no evidence of a conspiracy whatsoever, Imran Khan and his followers continue to dismiss any opinion that does not agree with them as just that – opinions. So no surprise that the boiling point has come at last. The military is right to respond that what is being dismissed as its opinion is in fact a position reached after weighing all relevant evidence. And it’s another point, of course, that opinions that agree with the PTI’s are not dismissed as partisan at all.

It seems the best thing to do is to order the judicial inquiry that PTI is calling for, even though that option throws up a couple of questions that must first be answered. One, as PML-N is pointing out, why didn’t Imran Khan order a judicial inquiry while he was still prime minister? He’s clearly convinced that his administration was undone by an elaborate, US-funded conspiracy, and he claimed to have evidence for it, and it is he that is not going to be satisfied with anything less than a formal judicial inquiry; so it would have made a lot of sense if he had ordered it there and then. And two, isn’t the honourable court also going to confer with the very institutions that have already delivered their verdicts; more than once? It’s very difficult, then, for it to arrive at a conclusion that is completely opposite to their findings. Plus, considering PTI’s actions since Imran Khan’s unceremonious ouster, it’s very much possible that its adherents start attacking the legitimacy of the courts as well, as they have already done on occasion if it does investigate this matter and does not agree with PTI. Yet these matters will not really be settled till there is a judicial inquiry. Therefore, to put this matter to rest more than anything else, perhaps that is just what the government should order. *