ISLAMABAD: Sarina Isa, the wife of Justice Qazi Faez Isa, has written a letter to President Arif Alvi in which she questioned how a judge can be considered a security threat even after putting aside his “personal safety concerns and showing resolve against terrorism”.

In her three-page letter written on Tuesday, Mrs Isa wondered why recommendations of the 2017 Quetta Commission report on the previous year’s carnage in the Balochistan capital had not been implemented.

Over 70 people, mostly lawyers, were slaughtered on that day, but the crime remained unsolved till a judge of the Supreme Court was commissioned, Mrs Isa observed.

She further recalled the May 12, 2007, mayhem in Karachi when over 50 people lost their lives after a political party tried to stop then chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry from leaving the airport.

Raises several issues in her three-page letter to president

“In Nov 2017 an extremist group blocked the route from Rawalpindi to Islamabad by staging a sit-in at Faizabad, beating up policemen and destroying public property,” Mrs Isa wrote.

Mrs Sarina said it was regrettable that the recommendations made in the Quetta Commission report by her husband, Justice Qazi Faez Isa, had yet to be implemented while “dictates by foreign governments are accepted without murmur”.

“Is it not in our own interest to do more than what others ask us to do to protect ourselves. Can the President honestly say that the children killed in Peshawar would not have been alive if the report’s recommendations had been implemented.

“Do maimed survivors suffering everlasting trauma are good only for photo-opportunities,” the letter wondered.

Mrs Isa recalled how the President’s reference against Justice Isa was shown to her husband by former chief justice Asif Saeed Khosa before forwarding it to the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC). “My husband told Justice Khosa that the properties were not his and he had no concern with them,” the letter said.

Justice Khosa then observed: “How then is the reference maintainable.”

But then “something changed” and Justice Khosa decided to convene the SJC, allegedly without taking Justice Isa into confidence, Mrs Isa said.

Justice Khosa repeatedly sent for then attorney general Anwar Mansoor Khan, who after the reference was filed, allegedly asked Prime Minister’s Special Assistant Shahzad Akbar on June 1 last year to provide him her (Mrs Isa’s) tax returns.

“The AG and workers of a political party joined hands and Justice Khosa obliged them by asking for the money trail and the source of funds for purchase of the London properties.”

Likewise, Sarina Isa added, another former judge, Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed, heard another reference against Justice Isa six working days before his retirement, confident that it would conclude before he retired, the letter alleged.

Mrs Isa recalled that Justice Isa had written to President Arif Alvi three times, but the latter did not reply.

She said she and her husband had no armed escorts, but cautioned that those who “acted through proxies and in stealth” should know that if “we are harmed, your names will be sent to the Financial Action Task Force, Interpol and the United Nations”.

“Power has made them forget that they will be accountable in the Hereafter,” she concluded.

Sarina Isa recalled that with her appeal against the FBR assessment about her properties, she had enclosed an application seeking the tax records of those who had “illegally accessed my tax records”, namely the prime minister, Law Minister Dr Farogh Nasim, former AG Anwar Mansoor, Mirza Shahzad Akbar, Muhammad Ashfaq Ahmed and journalist Abdul Hameed Dogar.

“I am still waiting for the papers.”

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2020