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May 26, 2002
REVIEW: Why the silent commissions?
IN the morning of April 10, 1988, an army ordnance depot on the outskirts of Islamabad burst into flames triggering a series of panicky explosions. Missiles and rockets fell all over the twin city for more than an hour and many took it for an Indian attack. Disbelief, awe and terror prevailed. It was an unthinkable ordeal the residents went through. In all 93 died, 1,100 were injured and hundreds were missing.
Why and how this tragedy occurred is not a mystery. The media and the aware citizens know the reasons. Mystery surrounds the establishment’s reluctance to say anything about it even today. In incidents like this why the truth is often so brutally suppressed forms the core theme of this wonderful and well- researched book. In fact, it is a revealing study of Pakistan’s inquiry culture that has taken strong roots over the years to deny justice to the aggrieved and protect the culprits.
Whenever a tragedy occurs or is inflicted upon the people, an official probe is immediately ordered by the concerned authorities to cool public sentiment. Usually, a high court judge is appointed inquiry officer, the inquiry is then conducted and in most cases a report submitted. What follows is that either it is not made public or no action is taken against the guilty as happened in the case of the country’s greatest tragedy — separation of East Pakistan (the Hamoodur Rehman Commission’s report was partly released after 30 years only when an Indian magazine posted it on its website).
It is tragic to note that millions of rupees have been spent by successive governments on inquiry committees only to cover up the unlawful acts and crimes of the influential people. The purpose is to conceal true facts and save the guilty. There are occasions when the tribunals and committees do not submit the findings of their enquiry at all when unofficially told to give up the effort as it was not in the interest of the establishment or those at the helm of affairs.
The citizens have lost faith in the intentions and actions of the government, whatever its hue, and do not trust its tall promises of dispensing justice or coming out with the truth. The author of the book has worked hard to compile a list of inquiry committes and the results of various probed cases.
In the Ojheri blasts case, the then prime minister Mohammed Khan Junejo promised to expose the truth which in turn cost him his seat. He set up an inquiry commission headed by Lt Gen Imranullah Khan and a cabinet committee led by Aslam Khattak to find out the truth. The Imranullah Committee submitted its report quickly, on April 23, but restricted its findings to basic facts only and left the final verdict to be determined by the Khattak committee.
Meanwhile, the American CIA lodged a protest with Islamabad as to how the stinger missiles which had been supplied to the Mujahideen had reached Iran. This complicated the matter. At this Aslam Khattak suddenly left for Attok with the inquiry report where he tampered with its findings. This was detected by Rana Naeem, the minister of state for defence and a member of the committee who also happened to be Khattak’s rival. Since he had the original copy with him he undid the changes. An interesting development,that took place was that the report reached Gen Zia before it could formally be submitted to Junejo. It had recommended punitive action against Gen Akhtar Abdul Rehman and Gen Hameed Gul, the former incumbent ISI chiefs.
Gen Zia was angered and advised Junejo not to present this report before the National Assembly. however,the latter was adamant and refused to accept the advice. The general, reacting like a typical dictator, dismissed Junejo’s government and also dissolved the assembly. So, those who wanted to hush up the matter finally heaved a sigh of relief. Later, nobody ever demanded a fresh inquiry into the Ojheri camp disaster again nor asked to bring to task those found guilty. Aslam Khattak revealed later that the inquiry report had been stolen from the official record.
This one example of how shamelessly our ruling elite disregard popular concerns. The book covers several incidents and tragedies that have had a negative impact on the nation’s destiny, and the common man’s hope for a better tomorrow. The book also includes a chapter on the doctrine of necessity which the author believes laid the foundation for both civilian and military dictatorships in the country, which was introduced by Justice Munir. Ever since the judiciary has never termed a military dictator a usurper of power except for when he was dead or ineffective.
The various incidents the book records include prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan’s murder, the fall of East Pakistan and Hamoodur Rehman Commission’s report, the anti-Ahmadi movement and the consequent imposition of martial law in Lahore, Zamir Qureshi’s (a Lahore journalist) murder, the abduction of two college girls in Lahore when Mustafa Khar was the governor of Punjab, the Hyderabad conspiracy case, Khawaja Rafiq’s murder, Shabnam (filmstar) dacoity case, Asif Nawaz Janjua’s death, fire in the Parliament House, Murtaza Bhutto’s murder, the cooperatives scandal, Mehrangate, the Lahore runway scandal, cases of match- fixing case, the BCCI case and the Agartala conspiracy case.
In many cases, there had been prolonged protest, agitation, and violence, to demand justice and identification of the key players or the accused. Its also interesting to note how people tend to forget a case, each time the inquiry is delayed or left in left half way. There was no campaign against the delaying and cover-up tactics of the establishment. The people’s anger, on a number of occasions, had been an aberration to drift away from the main issues and so was the attitude of the political parties.
On September 20, 1958 there occurred a physical clash between the members of the Awami League, the ruling party, and Krishak Siramak Party, the opposition party. This was sparked off by the latter’s demand for the disqualification of six ruling party members for continuing careers as prosecuting lawyers and receiving salary from the government as well. Two days later, the tension rose to such an extent that the deputy speaker Shahid Ali was attacked and killed. This was one incident in which the inquiry commission’s report was not suppressed. But was only submitted after the imposition of the martial law by Ayub Khan. No action was taken against those involved in the murder. The only outcome of the report was the use of it by Ayub Khan to malign and disgrace the politicians of East Pakistan.
Qaumi sanehat par bannay walay commission, tribunal aur committiyan huqqaiq par purdah kiyon daal deitee hain?
By Wakeel Anjum
Jehangir Book Depot, Urdu Bazaar, Lahore. Tel: 042-7220879.
Email: jbdpress@wol.net.pk
387pp. Rs200
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