Daily Times

PTI’s fiery stalwart Shahbaz Gill’s mysterious arrest from Bani Gala on Tuesday is fast-widening an increasingly bitter political divide across the country.

While those rooting in the former prime minister’s top aide are decrying the arrest as an “abduction” by “unidentified individuals in unmarked vehicles,” the other end of the spectrum is emphatically swaying to the adage, “what goes around, comes around.”

After all, Mr Gill’s party had voluntarily chosen to let the colonial relic of sedition law spread its tentacles even deeper by slashing the charges left, right and centre. It is, indeed, a travesty of justice that the law thrives in a number of post-colonial states despite the mothership repealing the offence in 2009.

Then, British Parliamentary Undersecretary Claire had called it an “arcane offence-from a bygone era when freedom of expression wasn’t seen as the right it is today.”

However, the futility of emphasising the counterintuitive traitor-stamping exercise is known far and wide. Ergo, Daily Times would like to leave the demerits of this archaic, oppressive stick for its readers to decide for themselves.

Quite frustratingly, charging a political leader for spearheading negative propaganda in the wake of the unfortunate army helicopter crash is not the only fine kettle of fish here.

Despite the ambiguities in accusations by various PTI leaders about the details of the arrest of their comrade-in-arms (the CCTV footage contradicts all hue and cry over plainclothed men torturing and dragging Mr Gill), there appears no reason for the state to let passion get in the way of an administrative process.

The interior minister would have been better off had he allowed the law to take its course instead of jumping in front of cameras and apprising the press about the hypothetical below-the-belt punches he did not make. That the opposition is up in arms at Mr Gill not being given a chance “to defend himself in a court,” goes hand-in-hand with the universally-recognised right to a fair trial.

Yes, the fact that vagueness in the text of the sedition law itself has repeatedly allowed individuals to make use of the backdoor to selectively prosecute enemies and, by extension, undermines the legal right itself cannot be stressed enough. Since Pakistani courts have time and again tried to warn the executive against its misuse and even laid down mandatory guidelines, the parliament is a more fitting avenue to build on such discussion.

Today, the onus lies on the federal government to clear the air about any rules and regulations it has flouted in trying the said leader for inciting the public against state institutions. And the measures against a leading media house and its top-tier staff are not helping diffuse the tension whatsoever. Not long ago, Pakistan was listed among the “predators of press freedom” for allegedly stifling voices of dissent. Stepping out of the tainted shadows might be an excellent public relations exercise for Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif. *