Dharna questions

Sir: It is very rare in Pakistan that final reports of judicial commissions are ever made public. Such commissions are meant to cool down the political temperature. The sessions of these commissions linger on and finally the reports are shelved to eat dust for an indefinite period. But the recently constituted judicial commission to investigate allegations of systematic rigging in the 2013 general elections not only completed its task within the set time period, its report was also made public. According to the commission’s report, the 2013 elections were, by and large, free and fair, no evidence of systematic rigging could be presented/proved, though irregularities and the working style of the Election Commission’s untrained and part-time staff might have occasionally tainted the results.

PTI chief Imran Khan had campaigned against the results of the 2013 elections for two years, though it also formed the provincial government in KP as an outcome of the same election results. The PTI campaign peaked to fame and turmoil when it organised a spectacular dharna (sit-in) in Islamabad last August for 126 days. During the dharna, it tried its best to instigate the federal government to make it a law and order situation, let the army intervene and dismiss the federal government. However, all such efforts failed, the dharna lost its glory in a few weeks and later was quietly abandoned, sensing its apparent failure.
It is now time to open some account books to ascertain what was going on in the background. It is now openly alleged that the two heads of the country’s prestigious intelligence agencies had been helping the PTI not only in running its election campaign but also during its persistent protest against the federal government. It is alleged that corporate heads were asked (read forced) to fund the protest campaign. During the dharna, thousands of people gathered in Islamabad for more than four months. Someone must have footed the bill for food, drinks, tents, beds, chairs, music and voice system, power generators, transport, sanitary system and what not. DJ Butt who played a key role in providing music during the dharna to keep it alive, has already been paid tens of millions rupees; similarly, the tents rental bill runs into millions.
Now questions to be asked are — who was (were) behind the dharna and all this protest campaign, who paid for the expenses which ran in hundreds of millions rupees and most importantly, from where did all this money come?
If we intend to ignore these questions today, be ready for another cycle of protest on this or that pretext. We may need another judicial commission to cleanse this out.
MASOOD KHAN
Jubail
Saudi Arabia