Sunday, Dec 15, 2002
Sunday, Dec 15, 2002 |
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By B. Muralidhar Reddy
The court's decision did not come as a surprise. But the development is bound to trigger questions about the sincerity of the civilian set-up led by the Prime Minister, Mir Zafrullah Khan Jamali, to fulfil the commitments made by the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, to crack down on terrorism. Maulana Azhar was one of the three militants released by New Delhi in December 1999 in exchange for the freedom of the passengers aboard the Indian Airlines plane hijacked to Kandahar. After the January 12 address of Gen. Musharraf to the people of Pakistan last year, in which he announced the banning of five militant and sectarian outfits, the Government arrested about 2,000 activists. But it failed to produce concrete evidence against them in the courts. As a result, an estimated 1,300 of them have been let off. Among the high-profile prisoners released by the Pakistan regime was the former chief of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hafeez Mohammad Saeed, who was set free last month. On the eve of Id on December 6, the newly-installed provincial governments in the North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan announced the release of several activists of banned outfits on the ground that there were no charges against them. Azhar and Saeed were detained by Islamabad in the aftermath of the December 13 attack on Indian Parliament under the Maintenance of Public Order Act, which empowers the Pakistani authorities to detain a person for three months without specific charge. The Government insisted though that their detention had nothing to do with the Indian allegations that the attack was a joint operation by the Lashkar and the Jaish. But it was seen as a response to the pressure from India and the international community to act against individuals and organisations engaged in terror operations either in the name of Kashmir or sectarianism. The Musharraf regime faced the problem of keeping hundreds of arrested activists in custody without charges. There were instances when the courts ordered the release of individuals after reprimanding the Government for its failure to level specific charges or provide evidence that they posed a threat to law and order. This was precisely what happened when the Government approached the Lahore High Court, seeking extension of Azhar's detention.
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