By Agha Iqrar Haroon
There is a proverb that “Better late than never”. It relates to “it’s never too late,” in that it is never too late to stop or try something. The State of Pakistan, at last, is waking up from slumber after the majority of culprits of the May 9 Mutiny are allowed to contest General Elections 2024, and the caretaker government has constituted a five-member cabinet committee to look into the May 9, 2023 mutiny to identify their “mastermind, planners, facilitators and executors”.
This news is quite surprising that at last subsequently after a lapse of eight months and after hearing historic observations such as “those who made the country hostage are again contesting the election” that came from the Chief Justice of Supreme Court Qazi Faez Isa, the state expressed resolve to investigate the horrific attacks on military installations and monuments of martyrs and cabinet committee will determine the role played by those who were seen in videos and heard in audios while sending instructions to followers to attack state installations.
There is no doubt that a crackdown on those who were recorded by cameras was conducted but keyboard warriors and leadership of PTI either went into hideouts or kept living scot-free. Strangely, the alleged mastermind of the events, the former prime minister Imran Khan has been allowed to contest the forthcoming General Elections 2024 and his nomination papers for contesting General Elections 2024 have been accepted by the authorities.
The Cabinet Committee that was established on January 6, 2024, will examine the events leading up to the incidents of 9th May 2023, to ascertain the identity and role of mastermind, planners, facilitators, and executors; will analyze the causes, and determine responsibility for these events; will evaluate their immediate and long-term implications; will suggest preventive measures to ensure that such a breach of national security is not repeated; and will recommend measures to strengthen the existing legal regime to deter such recurrences. The Committee would submit its report for the cabinet’s consideration within 14 days.
There is no doubt that the State of Pakistan is facing multilayered hybrid attacks and at last, now waking from slumber to find or maybe fix what should have been done by 16 months-long PDM government that looked interested not in getting involved in controversies and let the military leadership to fight back against those who attacked military installations. The first four months of the interim government were spent cleaning the economic mess that left the PDM government behind. Now it is believed the interim government is now serious to fix things left by the May 9 Mutiny because those whole were involved in the Mutiny are now moving toward the Parliament as candidates in the forthcoming General Elections 2024.
There is no doubt that the PDM government which spent more than 10 billion rupees from the public exchequer to please media outlets and journalists had no plan to break the echo chamber and filter bubbles created by PTI for brainwashing of youth and cult mentality created by PTI is still ruling the Pakistani society.
Sane elements claim that things are far graver for Pakistan than one can easily understand and Pakistan is facing multilayered attacks that include physical (terrorism/events like May 9), psychological (justifying terrorism under the garb of human rights and right of expression), and economic attacks (ref letter writing of PTI to IMF for not releasing loans to Pakistan) and main actors involved in terrorism like TTP were allowed to resettled in Pakistan by PTI government.
In a thought-provoking discussion held at a PTV Talk Show “Chotha Satoon” (Fourth Pillar) anchored by senior journalist Jawad Faizi, participated by security and strategic affairs expert Syed Muhammad Ali, foreign affairs expert Shazia Anwer Cheema and security analyst and journalist Sumaira Khan raised several serious issues being faced by the country.
In this show that was telecast on January 6, 2024, participants were of the view that PTI social media network got huge funding from abroad and the majority of its keyboard warriors were sitting abroad including in India but there were no organized and collective efforts taken by Pakistan to counter and mitigate hateful propaganda spread by this professional brigade having the support of expensive Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools.
Participants were of the view that resettlement of TTP terrorists compromised sacrifices of 70,000 plus lives and the war that Pakistan won against terrorists during 2014-2018 is now again becoming a reality as TTP has increased attacks on Pakistan with the support of the most sophisticated weapons and using the soil of Afghanistan as launching pad against Pakistan. It was mentioned in the show that 1,800 intelligence-based operations were conducted by Pakistan forces that killed over 500 terrorists in the last year but groups like PTI are providing psychological space to terrorists to attack the State of Pakistan because PTI is still justifying attacks on military installations on May 9, 2023, so providing a psychological space to others to follow the practice. On the other hand, families of terrorists gathering in Islamabad are demanding the release of their family members although they had been involved in killing innocent people such families are being hosted by Human Rights organizations under the garb of “human Rights”. Participants claimed that foreign hands were behind well-planned moves against Pakistan and PTI was planning another Mutiny in the country with foreign funding.
They were of the view that political parties instead of being sarcastic must come forward and stand with the state and fight back to secure the State of Pakistan from anti-state elements. They were also of the view that those who made monsters like PTI should also be brought to justice because the state could not run with an excuse that it was an “error” conducted by the previous regimes.
Participants explained that Pakistan had witnessed the euphoria of a cult, individuals with numb sense-perception who got involved in massive-scale destruction and looting, and after arrests they were admitting the guilt of not being in control of themselves, exclaiming that it was done so and so reasons. Participants stated that such people must not be given pardons but the state is still shy to take strict actions against them.
Participants also discussed how the PTI bulldozed diplomatic and strategic state norms and Pakistan was on the verge of being isolated from the rest of the world.
There is no doubt that such discussions are effective and useful but such discussions take place and disappear because the state has no system in place to document and spread such thought-provoking discussions and spreading them among youth. There is no synchronization seen in state institutions for a collective effort to hold and disseminate words of sanity while the enemies have a wholesale market available to readers and listeners to find material against Pakistan that helps to spread hatred against Pakistan.
Since the General Elections 2024 are approaching closer, PTI is extensively using the victim card claiming that the military establishment wants to keep PTI out of the run and that is the reason that Returning Officers are rejecting the nomination papers of its candidates. However, figures indicate that compared to other political parties, the maximum number of nomination papers accepted by Returning officers are from PTI. There is no such system in place that can mitigate such impact of such fabricated material and can inform the public effectively that the nomination papers of some of the PTI leaders were rejected on technical grounds and these technical grounds were provided deliberately by the PTI. Can anybody believe that former prime minister Imran Khan and his legal team comprising of a dozen barristers and hundreds of lawyers do not know that the seconder and approver of nomination papers of a candidate for General Elections must be a resident of the same constituency from their candidate is contesting elections? Of course, neither he nor his team is so stupid. The next question is why PTI projected that the nomination papers of its candidates that had the same fallacies were rejected. The answer is simple PTI wanted to build up a situation in which it accused state institutions of political victimization. On the surface, PTI is successful in sending a message all around that it is a target therefore it would use the “victim card” before and even after polling day.
