Beware the thumb of Shahbaz Sharif

[LRE]

Beware the thumb of Shahbaz Sharif



Thursday, June 12, 2008
By Mian Saifur Rehman

A journalist never retires. It is, therefore, a routine matter if a journalist has to do a lot of on-the-job things. During the last week, I too got caught up in many such nefarious activities.

One such activity was that of on-the-job driving caused by bombardment of numerous cell phone calls. Being a law-abiding citizen to the extent of cowardice (coward not a la Zardari, as per his own admission), I had to stop my car every other minute on the side lanes and do some discussions.

There were many calls from across the length and breadth of this land of the pure. One of them I, however, remember, very vividly given the sense of immense goodwill carried in it. It was a call from none other than Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif’s Staff Officer Waqas-ul-Hassan. Conveying me the best wishes of my old schoolfellow, I mean the junior Sharif, Hassan wanted me to give him details about some blatant, 5-year-long illegalities committed allegedly by a mafia that is well versed in the art of proving itself more loyal than the king. It surprised me very much because I did not expect of an iron man to be so responsive. Iron men are rather built to be as inflexible and irresponsive as iron. Then, what type of iron man is this Mian Shahbaz Sharif who responds?

I think the answer is available in his one-time utterance that he is made of different metal and different blood. It is a long time ago when Shahbaz uttered these words while I was seated a few feet away at his Model Town residence on the same sofa that was occupied a few minutes back by Maulana Ajmal Qadri, famous politician-cum-religious leader.

I could notice the paleness of agony on Qadri’s face when he came across me at Sharif’s residence that morning after having publicly denounced the Shariat Bill passed by Sharifs. That Bill was ‘Na-Manzoor’ (unacceptable) to Qadri party, JUI, at that time. Then, what was Maulana doing the next day in a private sitting with junior Sharif who had come to Lahore along with his (the then) Premier brother, Mian Nawaz Sharif, to offer thanksgiving prayers for the passage of Shariat Bill?

Almost 16 to 17 years have passed since then. It is now after that much period that I have come to understand the meaning of different mould and metal of which Sharifs are made up.

After all, had it not been a matter of difference of make or mould, junior Sharif would never have tried to ascertain details of illegalities committed by people cleverly using his own (CM’s) banners and posters to thwart long due legal action by authorities including LDA, Police and Revenue departments.

I think the rule of Sharif’s thumb has dawned on Punjab. Please don’t mistake it for rule of thumb. Here it is in a different sense. Let me elaborate: anyone coming under the thumb of Shahbaz Sharif, will not be able to escape scot-free without accounting for his sins.

I, however, suggest not to extend this rule of thumb for wreaking vengeance on those poor guys who were given jobs during the previous government’s tenure. The fact is that the entire working class lives below the poverty line. In my opinion, even BS-18, 19 officials living on honest means like, for instance, officials of many non-lucrative-and spineless- government departments are poor, hapless creatures. Subjecting them to further pressures would tantamount to torturing them for the petty sin of finding a job through connections.

Thank God that the party of the people led by Asif Ali Zardari and Yusuf Raza Gillani, the PM, have evolved a workable strategy to grant permanent job status to contract employees. It is no favour to anyone but to the toiling Pakistani masses.

Punjab, I hope, will follow the suit. I will, however, seize this opportunity to suggest to Mian Shahbaz Sharif to expand the scope of corruption in Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) rules.

Previously, the rules did not allow legal action against swindlers looting the commoners in private housing schemes. I was rather startled to hear about this anomaly from none other than the former DG, ACE.

By now, billions of rupees have been embezzled through these schemes and unfortunately, ACE is yet unclear whether such malpractices constitute corruption or not?

Of course, there is a whole sea of doings and misdoings that constitute corruption provided the top arbiters are capable enough to keep an eagle eye on them. People, however, say that the new CM is always having an eagle eye on things. And he is virtually an eagle because of his immense ability to do rapid maneouvres than any eagle can do. More power to his elbow comes from those thousands of legal eagles who have waged the war for strengthening of judiciary.

I wish all these eagles had understood that there is need to strengthen all the national institutions and not just one institution, whatever the personal follies and foibles of the men heading or manning these institutions.

Let us for the time being visualize someone engaged in hitting the personnel from the institution of armed services. Very honestly, any such attack means playing in the hands of Pakistan’s ill wishers who are always looking for such golden opportunities to come their way. And their (the adversaries’) task is not that difficult given the fact that we are ourselves very good at self-destruction.

In the end, I do like to share some sensitive information given to me by a ruling party legislator. I cannot divulge all the details, fearing a backlash in the shape of court notices that my organization and I are already facing in one such matter.

The information pertains to silent, gentle minting of money (a case of camouflaged corruption) within one-and-a-half month span by a political oldie whose own face- and that of his descendants- otherwise symbolize angelic innocence. I still wish that the information were wrong. I just can’t reconcile with the idea of a self-righteous ruler stooping so low.

PUN OF THE DAY: Rule of (Sharifs’) thumb and rule of law are one and the same thing.

http://thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=118033