THE ‘return’ of Dr Amir Aziz in the early hours of November 19, the day when he was to be produced before the Lahore High Court, has brought one chapter of the sordid story to an end. But there is a lot more to it than just the disappearance and reappearance of an individual. The incident has put deep black non-washable mud on the administration’s face and has brought shame to the entire nation. This, unfortunately, is not the first incident of its kind.
At one stage, the doctor’s case coincided with the carrying out of the death sentence of Aimal Kasi and the arrival of his dead body in Pakistan. Kasi was most regrettably handed over to the US by a political government in a policy of abject surrender. Dr Aziz may have met a similar fate if circumstances and public outcry, sustained by the Press and a positive and courageous stance by the Lahore High Court, had not backed him.
The case has highlighted a pathetic state of incompetence in the administration and a deplorable tendency to feed lies to the public and the courts from responsible levels in the government. The LHC judge, Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jilani, was forced to observe that “the state must make a true statement.” By then, it had become clear that the state was not only producing false statements before the court instead of the missing surgeon, it was also demonstrating flagrant disrespect for law and treating the LHC with contempt.
Picked up from a private local hospital on October 21, the whereabouts of Dr Aziz became a mystery till he was delivered back to the family in the early hours of November 19, the day he was to be produced before LHC; many aspects of the mystery have yet to be unveiled. Two things transpired during this period. One: either the Interior Ministry, various agencies of the government and Punjab Police had no communication with each other or they were scornfully dishing out blatant lies and making a mockery of the legal system; public sentiment counted for naught to them.
The Inspector-General of Punjab Police had no information about what had happened to a leading surgeon who was a well-known personality of the provincial capital and neither, it appears, was he concerned about him. One can call that callousness, incompetence or preoccupation with the protection of his Grade 21 skin. Only the IGP can tell the meaning of his ignorance about what had happened to Dr Aziz. But no explanation can be convincing because most facts have been made available to the people through the national media.
The US agency FBI was widely believed to be involved in making Dr Aziz vanish from public view. The interior minister and officials assisting him went out of the way to confuse the situation. Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Punjab made his inept, apparently an officially-ordained contribution by informing the LHC that he had not been successful in contacting the interior minister. In this time and age and at his level, the DAG could not have presented himself as more foolish or more spineless. But such behaviour, it seems, is now an integral component of job contracts for officials.
At the same time, the Additional Secretary (AS) of the ministry for crisis management told a foreign news agency that “it will take one or two more days before we can take a decision on what to do with him. We might inform the public then and give some kind of statement.” His words contained the ring of an extraordinary lack of judgment and rank, irresponsible behaviour if not total disdain for public opinion and a frozen attitude towards the safety of a citizen.
The expression ‘crisis management’ seems to have a different connotation in the public sector and implies triggering a crisis and mismanaging it. Like the minister, the AS is also from the army, a brigadier to boot. The least one expects from them is straightforwardness; they must realize, the minister more than the AS, that they are answerable to the people even if they are appointed officials and not representatives of the people.
The minister, (retd) Lt-Gen Moinuddin Haider, who was the Sindh Governor before joining the federal government to preside over law and order, campaign against smuggling and to eliminate ‘Bara’ markets — all undertakings abandoned in clouds of controversy — was more outrageous. He is on record for telling a foreign news agency that there was an “oblique reference to Dr Aziz in Guantanamo Bay. He was invited by one of our agencies to clarify the situation.” This suggests that when a dubious word is uttered somewhere against a Pakistani citizen, the administration considers itself duty-bound to take action and undermine the interests of that citizen.
The information made available to the foreign press could not be passed on to a court of law in Pakistan. The minister and officials of the government apparently are more answerable to the foreign press than the national legal system and its institutions. The reported facts of the case are that Dr Aziz was picked up by FBI of the US and local security personnel. As for Guantanamo Bay, many individuals interrogated by FBI in that prison later turned out to be innocent. After a painful experience, they were transported back to their countries. Miseries inflicted on them due to mistakes or wrong information are insolently treated. The manner in which authorities in Pakistan are assisting the FBI is, to say the least, humiliating.
The doctor’s alleged crime was treating patients whose existence is considered dangerous to American interests as well as helping Taliban in producing chemical and other dangerous weapons. He is the third Pakistani to have been accused of such an association with Taliban. The first was Dr Bashiruddin Ahmed, formerly of the Atomic Energy Commission. He was ‘interrogated’ for a fairly long period. Dr Abdul Rauf of the PCSIR was also picked up. He spent nearly six months in the custody of the government. He hasn’t, like Dr Ahmed, talked of what happened to him during the illegal incarceration. Neither is Dr Amir Aziz likely to come out with the details of his experience. The price of ‘freedom’ for these individuals could well be threats to their safety and well being.
But questions are being asked and rumours are afloat. It is generally believed that he was taken to Afghanistan for interrogation to identify people and places he was in contact with for his efforts to revive Kabul Medical College. These rumours need to be clarified. Doing that would be in the interest of the government. The public wishes to know what transpired in the period of nearly one month from October 21 and Nov 19. The authorities must come clean or their image would remain smudged.
It is generally feared that the authorities in Pakistan can go any distance in their participation in the War Against Terror, regardless of what that may entail for the country. No one has any idea of how the present leadership would cope with such a situation.
It would indeed not be wrong to conclude that Pakistan is already receiving negative fallout of the campaign in some ways and that the authorities have shown no intention and seem to have no plans for stepping away from what is undeniably a mined landscape.
THE ‘return’ of Dr Amir Aziz in the early hours of November 19, the day when he was to be produced before the Lahore High Court, has brought one chapter of the sordid story to an end. But there is a lot more to it than just the disappearance and reappearance of an individual. The incident has put deep black non-washable mud on the administration’s face and has brought shame to the entire nation. This, unfortunately, is not the first incident of its kind.
