‘They want Davis, we want Aafia’

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

GUJRANWALA/LAHORE– Stopping a little short of directly linking the release of Raymond Davis with Dr Aafia Siddiqui, Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Babar Awan said on Sunday that the United States has “a repatriation call (for Davis) and we have a call (for Aafia)”. Awan’s statement, the first of its kind by a state functionary, came during his talk with journalists as he visited Gujranwala to offer condolences for PPP City President Lala Muhammad Idrees’s demise. He made another similar statement on his arrival in Lahore later in the day.
A US court has sentenced Dr Aafia to prolonged imprisonment on charges of abetting militants in Afghanistan, a charge Dr Aafia and his family vehemently deny. There had been calls from political and religious parties of Pakistan to free Dr Aafia in view of her deteriorating health, but the US never paid heed to such calls, saying it was a matter of their internal security.
The law minister said General Pervez Musharraf’s arrest warrant had been issued by court and now the former president would have to face the proceedings. He said the PPP was the only party enjoying public support, while “the rest are plutocrats”.
He said that Altaf Hussain and Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman were supporting the coalition government despite their isolation from the federal cabinet. The PPP government, he said, was pursuing the politics of reconciliation.
He said the PPP government had distributed Rs 400 billion among the provinces. The Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Baluchistan Programme for the restoration of political and democratic process in the province was also this government’s achievement, he added.
Addressing lawyers at the Punjab Bar Council in Lahore and talking to the media at the shrine of Hazrat Mian Mir, Babar Awan said the government would present its official stance on the issue of Raymond Davis in court as the matter was sub-judice. Babar Awan, however, added that the US is demanding the release of Raymond Davis while the Pakistani government has been demanding the release of Dr Aafia for a long time now.
He reiterated the government would ensure implementation of court orders on former president Pervez Musharraf. He said nobody could pressurise the government on such issues. He said the judiciary is independent and issuance of an arrest warrant for the former dictator in BB’s murder case was a clear manifestation of it. Awan said politicking over Musharraf’s arrest warrant was not justified as the government was just following court orders.