Mockery of
the Law
By Col. Riaz Jafri
(Retd)
Westridge, Rawalpindi
It
was sad to see a person of national standing –
Jansher Khan –to be sent to the jail after
cancellation of his bail before arrest. Now, apart
from the merits of the criminal case against him
or the other party, if the worthy court deemed
it fit to cancel his pre-arrest bail, then the
legal procedures should have been followed as
warranted by the law. I have nothing against Jansher
Khan and on the contrary always admired him for
his monumental achievements starting from an unknown
child at the Swati Phatak, Peshawar Cantt, where
he playfully and smilingly obliged many a female
resident of the locality by doing her household
chores – like fetching the bread from the
tandoor or hailing a rickshaw for a returning
visitor, of course freely. They all loved him.
Coming to the law, it must be equal for all. In
that immediately on the cancellation of the pre-arrest
bail the culprit is to be handcuffed so that he
does not run away. This was not done, as was seen
in the media pictures where shabbily dressed policemen
were escorting him out of the court. Then he was
shifted from the Central Jail the very next day
to the Lady Reading Hospital on the pretext of
his being sick needing immediate medical treatment!
This is most surprising, as he was seen hale and
hearty hours before being ushered out of court.
Therefore, it should not be difficult for anyone
to know what all must have transpired from his
shifting from the prison to the hospital. How
much money must have been passed through how many
hands to make Jansher suddenly fall sick that
critically to need immediate medical aid and be
removed to the hospital with that haste, is anybody’s
guess? Would such a ‘facility’ be
offered by the jail authorities to a lesser mortal
who cannot afford it?
Will it too much praying to the august court to
enquire into such a mockery of the law?
******
Wanted Army Personnel
Not a day passes when one does not come across
an ad in the newspapers asking for the ex-army
personnel to be employed at all echelons of our
national life from a peon, cook, driver, security
guard, clerk, field worker to the junior and senior
executive – you name it - by private individuals,
entrepreneurs, industry, companies and corporations.
Preference for the ex-military personnel is obviously
for their being more disciplined, better sense
of duty and responsibility, punctuality and punctiliousness,
trained to obey orders and ability to execute
them satisfactorily, and lastly for placing the
service before self, thus giving their best at
all times. Such qualities make them not only matchless
but also more productive and useful to the organization
they serve. But, when the government inducts the
servicemen to salvage a department near annihilation
there is a big hue and cry from all especially
the pseudo-intellectuals and the politicians from
the opposite camp. Do they not know that there
is nothing new in such a practice which has been
in vogue all over the world since long?
That’s why the two last Viceroys of India
- Field Marshal Wavell and the First Sea Lord
of the Admiralty Louis Mountbatten – were
from the armed forces and appointed one after
the other at the most crucial juncture of the
last days of the British Raj. Couldn’t Attlee
and Churchill find a single politician or a civilian
in the entire British empire to handle the situation
in India at that historic time of their rule?
History is replete with instances where the army
alone could rescue a nation from its internal
disaster. Whether one accepts it or not, the hard
fact of life is that whenever things go out of
kilter it is the armed forces that can put it
back on the tracks. Nation should be grateful
to the army instead of the thoughtless condemnation
it hurls upon it by playing into the hands of
self-seekers and plunderers.
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