Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Pakistan - ''Loose Cannon'' - Zulfiqar Mirza - Power-drunk feudal




Since his estrangement from his close friend and long time partner, Pakistan People’s Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, Zulfiqar Mirza, the former interior minister of Sindh, has cut a rather forlorn figure in the political landscape of Pakistan. Yet that hasn’t kept him idle by any measure; Mirza has become icon for sensationalist media with his increasingly ridiculous ‘revelations’ and highly intricate conspiracy theories – all without a shred of proof of course. While he has been tolerated as loose cannon for quite a while his recent actions have crossed the line at Bilawal house; and more importantly in the eyes of the law. His antics at the Badin police station reveal him to be the same kind dictatorial, power-drunk feudal that he claims to be fighting against.

Zulfiqar Mirza, riding in his SUV and surrounded by hundreds of armed men and supporters broke down the gate off the Badin police station and stormed inside, ostensibly to protest against the arrest of his aide, Nadeem Mughal. There he raged around like a common thug, breaking furniture, hurling abuses and manhandling the DSP, Abdul Qadir Samoon. Zulfiqar Mirza - who ironically held the portfolio of Jails and Prisons during his stint in the Sindh cabinet – ordered his men to break open the cells and release Nadeem Mughal. Before making his grand entry at the police station, Mirza had taken his men around Badin, forcibly closing shops and roughing up shopkeepers. Mirza might have been the target of political victimization ad his allegations, at least a few of them, may be true; but his actions are not of a man fighting against injustice, but those of a ruffian forcibly trying to get what he wants. Under no circumstances is it right to storm police stations and free workers, our politicians – and few major ones as well –need to learn that. If Pakistani lawmakers can flout the law so easily why should the Taliban follow it, why should the common man?
Dr Mirza claims that he is exposing the corruption of Zardari and for that he is being targeted, conveniently ignoring the fact that he stood by for years watching this supposed corruption happen under his watch. Even if we buy his reformed sinner facade, to this point he has not backed up his statements with an ounce of proof. His fantastical allegations of MQM being sponsored by the U.S, the illicit relations of Zardari and the corruption of other politicians are nothing more than catchy sound bites; spewed in an effort to revive a falling political career. It is time this divisive, and seemingly unhinged ex-politician, be shown the same prisons he once managed.

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