THIS column is about a man, an elected representative of the people, a suspended MQM member of the suspended National Assembly. His name is Kunwar Khalid Yunus, but as his name would suggest, he is not a prince. I have known him for some ten years.
Khalid claims to be a politician, but is known as a party activist and is a journalist of sorts who has written much in defence of his party. No reasonable man can agree with either his party's views or the views which he propagates.
The MQM is acknowledged to have fascistic tendencies and my dislike of this party is as intense as it is of all our other political parties which are led by men and women who are corrupt in more sense than one, who work solely towards self-aggrandisement and who all claim to be democrats, members of a 'democracy' - said to be a blissful dispensation but one which this country has never experienced. The Western world continues to demand that we restore that which we never had.
Having declared my interest, I plead for Khalid, a fellow man, a fellow human being. He is in Central Prison, Karachi, where he has now been for just over a year, having been in and out of jail several times over the past decade. Since September 11, 1999, shortly prior to the ending of the last of our so-called democratic governments, to date he has not been produced in court once.
Khalid has not been disoriented as this is his third round as a political prisoner. He was first arrested and jailed in June 1992, accused of having committed a string of crimes, and was bailed out in March 1993. He was arrested and jailed again in May 1994, again for a long list of crimes, and released on parole in January 1997 when Nawaz Sharif was wooing the MQM in preparation for the February elections.
This time he remains involved in 82 cases registered at 25 police stations and to free himself he will have to appear before 22 magistrates and judges. The sections of the Pakistan Penal Code under which he has been booked are the following:
Section 34: Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention; Section 36: Effect caused partly by act and partly by omission; Section 63: Amount of fine. Where no sum is expressed to which a fine may extend, the amount of fine to which the offender is liable, is unlimited but shall not be excessive; Section 109: Punishment of abetment if the act abetted is committed in consequence and where no express provision is made for its punishment; Section 114: Abettor present when offence is committed deemed to have committed the offence; Section 115: Abetment of offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life if offence not committed; Section 120-B: Punishment for criminal conspiracy same as for abetment; Section 124-A: Sedition - attempt to bring into hatred or contempt or to excite or attempt to excite disaffection towards central or provincial government; Section 147: Rioting; Section 148: Rioting with a deadly weapon; Section 149: Every member of an unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object; Section 153-A: Promoting enmity between different groups; Section 153-B: Inducing students etc to take part in political activity; Section 188: Disobedience to order duly promulgated by a public servant; Section 234: Making or selling instrument for counterfeiting Pakistani coin; Section 302: Murder; 307: Attempt to murder; Section 323: Voluntarily causing hurt; Section 324: Voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means; Section 325: Punishment for voluntarily causing grievous hurt; Section 332: Voluntarily causing hurt to deter a public servant from his duty; Section 335: Voluntarily causing grievous hurt on provocation; Section 337: Causing hurt by an act endangering life or personal safety of others; Section 341: Wrongful restraint: Section 343: Wrongful confinement for three or more days; Section 347: Wrongful confinement to extort property, or constrain to illegal act; Section 353: Assault or criminal force to deter a public servant from discharge of his duty; Section 365: Kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly or wrongly to confine a person; Section 367: Kidnapping or abducting in order to subject a person to grievous hurt, slavery, etc; Section 435: Mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to cause damage; Section 436: Mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy; Section 437: Mischief with intent to destroy or make unsafe a decked vessel or one of twenty tons burden; Section 506: Punishment for criminal intimidation.
Apart from all these, he has been booked under Section 14EHO (punishment for theft liable to tazir), and various sections of the Qisas and Diyat ordinance/act. Each 'First Information Report' (FIR) on the basis of which each of the 82 cases have been filed encompasses one or more of the sections listed above.
The courts before which he should appear (he has not so far been taken to any) include District Central: Courts No.1, 2, 3 and the District Judge's Court; District East: Additional District Judge's Court, No.1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8; Judicial Magistrate's Court No.9, Senior Civil Judge (M). The police stations where the FIRs were filed include Gulbahar, Tamooria, Gulberg, Sharifabad, Nazimabad, Jahaurabad, Liaquatabad, New Karachi, K A Nagri, North Nazimabad, Civil Lines, Azizabad, Ferozabad, Korangi, Alfala, Zaman Town, Aziz Bhatti, Shah Faisal, Jamshed Quarter, Landhi, Malir City, Quaidabad.
Khalid has an aged ailing father who retired honourably as a senior superintendent of police, an aged ailing mother, a distraught wife who used to run a school but now cannot as she is the one who runs around to the various courts trying to arrange for bail, and a young daughter, now in college, who has a bullet lodged in her abdominal area as some ten years ago a bullet aimed at her father, whilst he was in his garden with her, got to her instead.
The Chief Justice of Pakistan, Irshad Hassan Khan, has a heavy schedule. He has recently visited the United States where he met judges of the US Supreme Court, who were as impressed by him and his judgments as they were by other of our chief justices who have previously called upon them. Justice Khan is now in Nepal attending a SAARC conference. Whilst there he has stated that the judiciary in Pakistan is independent of the executive and that its rights are intact. On his return, he will be presiding over a the Bench hearing an appeal which must swiftly be decided as it involves the redemption of the honour and prestige of the apex court of our land. There is sufficient evidence on record to prove that the November 1997 storming of that august institution by a mob was organized by the party in power, the Pakistan Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif. Now that Nawaz and his faithfuls have been deposed of, there should be no difficulty in producing evidence if any be found lacking.
Would the Chief Justice of Pakistan very kindly read this column, convert it into a petition (as has been done before), and instruct a bench of his brother judges to hear it as soon as is possible as it involves the life and liberty of a citizen of this country. Khalid should at least be released on bail forthwith and it should be ensured that the security sought is not onerous. Should Khalid decide to jump bail and seek asylum with his Great Leader, Altaf Hussain, in Britain, I can assure our good judges that it will be our gain and Britain's loss.