THE Supreme Court has charged a cleric who recently in a video message allegedly hurled threats at many people, with contempt in the Justice Isa case.

Mirza Iftikharuddin, the cleric, had taken the entire responsibility for his video message without involving any person or naming or blaming any ‘hidden hands’ behind this saga. This disappointed many.

A few weeks ago, a well-known cleric and head of a political party, on a tip that NAB was going to arrest him, openly threatened the establishment and other departments and retorted: “Eent say eent baja dunga agar aik qadam bhi barhaya.”

Why was no action taken against him? The judiciary should have taken suo motu notice and initiated court proceedings against him. In this case charges should be more serious in nature compared to Mirza Iftikharuddin’s.

Had the government taken stringent measures and arrested Mirza Iftikharuddin on the same grounds, the entire social, electronic and print media, including champions of freedom of speech, would have come forward to defend him.

Even some of them would have written to human rights watchdogs, telling them that the government had been gagging people.

Asif Ali Khan
Karachi

Published in Dawn, July 8th, 2020