RAWALPINDI, March 20: Sensitive people suffer silently gaudy political banners and posters dirtying and disfiguring public places, but, hopefully, no more.

On Tuesday, an honourable judge saw to it that the Benazir Bhutto International Airport is swept clean of the myriad of posters and banners of political groups inside and around the building.

Like many others, Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa of Balochistan High Court found the sight revolting when he arrived at the airport to board a flight for Quetta.

Airport sources said while walking to the Rawal Lounge, he asked his protocol officer to call the airport management, security officials and PIA station manager to seek an explanation for the unsavoury display.

But the explanation that the posters were put up for PIA workers union election held last week did not satisfy the chief justice, who also heads the Supreme Court Commission probing the memo case.

Since the publicity material should have been removed after the union elections but were not, Justice Isa ordered them to be removed ‘now’ and left to board his PIA flight PK-363.

But the pilot aborted the flight after noticing some technical fault while taxiing for takeoff.

Once the plane came back to a bay, and the passengers disembarked,  Justice Isa called for a “compliance certificate” from the officers that his order had been carried.

“We provided him the certificate after removing the banners in a short time. The staff officer of the honourable chief justice inspected the site and verified the same,” airport manager Azhar Faheem Khattak told Dawn.

How he managed the task is not known. It can only be imagined.