ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has called for bringing back self-exiled former military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf to the country in connection with Benazir Bhutto’s murder case and regretted the failure of the state to implement the orders of the court which had already issued his non-bailable arrest warrants.

Talking to reporters outside the Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi bench after the hearing of the Benazir Bhutto murder case here on Tuesday, PPP leader and former Punjab governor Sardar Latif Khosa said the party jiyalas (activists) had been anxiously waiting to get justice in the case for the last over a decade.

“It is before everyone that the main accused General Pervez Musharraf has fled the country and how did he manage to escape the justice,” said Mr Khosa, who is also PPP’s counsel in the case.

PPP secretary general Syed Nayyar Hussain Bukhari, former senator Farhatullah Babar, former prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, Asif Ali Zardari’s official spokesman Aamir Fida Paracha and party’s media coordinator Nazir Dhoki were also present in the court, besides local PPP leaders and activists.

LHC Rawalpindi bench issues arrest warrants for two suspects

Mr Khosa regretted that several non-bailable warrants had been issued for Gen Musharraf but these could not be implemented. Moreover, he criticised the state machinery, particularly the city police officer (CPO), for not obeying the orders of the court in this most important case. He also slammed the CPO for not appearing before the court on Tuesday.

“It is ironic that all the people who were sentenced to 19 years in jail have now been restored on service, and even got promotions,” Mr Khosa said.

Responding to a question, Nayyar Bukhari said the 26-point declaration issued at the opposition’s multiparty conference (MPC) on Sept 20 would determine the direction of politics in Pakistan in near future. He lashed out at the federal ministers for their statements after the MPC.

Raja Pervez Ashraf welcomed the statement by the military leadership of dissociating itself from politics, saying politics was the job of only politicians. He said the opposition parties were united to safeguard the parliamentary system in the country.

Earlier, a two-judge LHC bench took up PPP’s appeals against the 2017 verdict of an anti-terrorism court to acquit main suspects in the case. The ATC had also declared Gen Musharraf an absconder in the case.

The court issued warrants for two suspects — Aitzaz Shah and Sher Zaman — over their failure to appear before it and ordered the CPO to pro­d­uce them at the next hearing on Oct 19.

Published in Dawn, September 23rd, 2020