THE Supreme Court of Pakistan summoned me to Islamabad to testify before it on May 6, in the case of its storming, on November 28, 1997, by the parliamentarians and the street squads of the ruling party. On May 14, the historical judgment in the case was delivered. It must be printed in letters of gold and forever held high in the annals of the history of the judiciary of Pakistan.
On the evening of May 6, in Islamabad, I met Chanel Khan of the American Broadcasting Company, who also freelances for the BBC. She told me how she had recently been harassed - received threatening phone calls, watched, followed as she moved around our capital. This had been going on since the BBC team had been in Pakistan making their documentary on the doings of the Sharif family. I promised to raise this point with the prime minister's favourite, Saifur Rahman, the man in charge of all such affairs, who I was to meet for lunch the following day, and also with Information Minister Mushahid Hussain.
When I rang Mushahid the next morning he naturally pretended to know nothing about anything, and said we could not meet as he was very busy organizing the celebrations for "Bomb" week.
At lunch, I asked Saifur Rahman how it is that those in power in Islamabad manage to become so proficient in record time at shooting themselves in both feet and demolishing all ten toes with one bullet? Why did the government have to pick up Hussain Haqqani and his brother, a serving colonel of the Pakistan Army, in the middle of the night? Why did they want to make a 'leader' out of Haqqani and foist upon us yet another useless man? Why was Chanel Khan, a single woman living alone with her young children, being harassed for doing her job? Why was Najam Sethi being hounded, ostensibly for what he had said in India? Does the government not realize that, in this day and age when news is flashed through the ozone layers in seconds, such bully-boy tactics rebound? Why don't you meet Sethi? Saif said he would meet Editor Najam and his publisher wife Jugnu at 1300 the next day, Saturday May 8. This I conveyed to Sethi in Lahore from Saif's office and he confirmed they would be in Islamabad at the appointed hour.That evening I flew back to Karachi. At 0330 in the morning of May 8 a naturally very disturbed Jugnu rang to tell me that a gang of plainclothes men, accompanied by police officers, had stormed her house, battered Sethi, and taken him away after trussing her up and locking her in her bedroom. Will they kill him? she asked. Unlikely, I told her, but why does this thought cross your mind? Because when I asked the men if they had a warrant for Najam's arrest, I was told by one that their warrant was a bullet.
I rang Saif to ask what was going on. He knew nothing about it; he had done nothing. Why don't you speak to Mushahid? Later that afternoon, Saif arranged for a three-page statement to be faxed to me from Mushahid's office, most of which appeared in the press the next day. Najam was 'suspected' of having a 'nexus' with RAW, to prove which he had been taken into custody by the 'Agencies' and was being held and interrogated by the ISI.
The next day, May 9, I finally got hold of Mushahid in the evening at Karachi airport . He was on his way to Hong Kong and Macao to attract tourists. A joke, I said. Which tourists will come to a country where journalists are arrested in the middle of the night on trumped-up treason charges ? Mushahid declared he was not responsible for the Sethi episode.
On Monday the 10th, I had several conversations with Saif and he finally admitted to being convinced that wrong had been done, that no civilized man in any country could condone the manner in which Sethi had been arrested. It was time, I told him, that some sort of damage control was exercised, and exercised before Washington awoke to their Monday morning. He should talk to his Lord and Master , Nawaz Sharif. Saif suggested that I address a fax to Nawaz Sharif, send it to him, and he would deliver it. Right, I said, and sent off the following :
"Dear Prime Minister
Najam Sethi
1) You are fortunate in having Saifur Rahman as a loyal friend. Whatever right or wrong he may do, he does with the intention of doing right by you.
2) What Najam Sethi may think of you and your doings is of little consequence to the people. What Wolfensohn of the World Bank may think of you and your government's methods and means, converted into real terms, can affect the lot of 140 million poor suffering people.
3) Please read the 3-page statement broadcast by your government, a copy of which was faxed to me by Mushahid's office. Dateline Islamabad May 8, it narrates what "a spokesman of the federal government" has said. It appears to be Mushahid's doing, but he denies it. Whoever may be the author, the credibility of your government is such that not one person believes one word of such press handouts. It states: "It is suspected that the journalist has some nexus/connection with RAW ........To unearth such links, it is considered imperative to investigate him in the matter of national security..... Consequently, Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) has taken him into custody."
4) "Some nexus/connection with RAW" is merely 'suspected'. Questions: Could the nexus/connection have been developed overnight? Were our watchdogs asleep? On a mere suspicion, "to unearth such links," our clueless and inept government has acted hamhandedly, without, to our knowledge, having unearthed any links.
5) Sethi was "taken into custody for interrogation by the law enforcement agencies." Question: Could the agencies not have summoned him, or even called on him? When he was 'picked up' at 0230 hours he was not on the way to blow up parliament house, he was asleep in his bed.
6) Wolfensohn has telephoned Sethi's wife, Jugnu, promising help and support. Before he goes to work today, Monday May 10, and moves his machinery, it might help if Sethi were to be released and a statement issued to the effect that the prime minister, having learnt of the unfortunate manner in which Sethi was apprehended, has intervened and ordered his release. The investigation can continue without Sethi being in custody until the 'suspicions' are converted into proof and solid charges.
7)Ours being a one-man government, may I suggest that you take action before you leave for Brunei."
Saif arranged for this to be delivered to Nawaz Sharif, who was at Lahore recovering from his Dubai trip and preparing himself for his Brunei/Singapore foray. According to Saif, the prime minister read it and asked him to convey to me his thanks for my concern and his assurance that he would do all in his power, within the ambit of the law, to protect the safety, integrity, and ideology of the country.
Najam remained in custody. On May 12 his habeas corpus petition came up for the third time before the Lahore High Court. I flew to Lahore that morning to be in the court with Jugnu. It was most heartening to hear the two young women, Jugnu and Asma Jehangir, and lawyer Khalid Ranjha, stand at the bar and plead Najam's case. But one look at the judge was enough to convince me that Nawaz Sharif's writ would take precedence over the writ of habeas corpus. And so it did.
That same day, The Friday Times was to be printed. The printers were put under tremendous pressure by the powers that be, but resisted and brought out the paper. The Lahore consignment was confiscated the next day before it could reach the news-stands. The Karachi consignment was confiscated at the airport.
It is amazing how the government is attempting to embroil the army in the Sethi affair. However, Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf's army is holding its position. As it has always held, it holds that the ISI though partly manned by serving army officers and headed by a serving general, does not operate under the command of the COAS. The ISI, takes its orders and reports directly to the minister of defence who is normally the prime minister. The army is aware that Sethi was not picked up by the ISI and that he was put into ISI custody by the 'agencies' concerned for 'interrogation.' The question of Sethi being tried by the army under the Army Act has not arisen.
Now that our Great Helmsman is returning from his triumphant tour (for which he used our 400-seater aircraft) we must hope that he will see sense and release Sethi. Who has damaged our country, Sethi or Nawaz Sharif?