EDUCATED Pakistani expats had high hopes for Pakistan with a new, incorruptible leader in Imran Khan.

Everyone knows that heads of both major political parties and their cronies made tonnes of personal money and squeezed the country’s economy dry.

Yet even a strong person like Imran Khan could not keep them behind bars and they are about to go abroad for ‘medical treatment’. What a loud and clear message to all the corrupt in Pakistan.

Pakistan now does not have the moral authority to keep even one white collar criminal behind bars as it is allowing a convicted criminal a way out. That is not what used to happen in Riasat-i-Madina where the powerful and weak were held equally accountable.

The mistake that Musharraf made is being repeated yet again. The Sharifs are being allowed to go abroad. Pakistanis don’t seem to learn from history.

It is disheartening to see Pakistanis could not withstand a couple of years of significant pain to get out of impending bankruptcy to make the essential structural changes and rooting out corruption needed to put the nation on the path to prosperity.

Afridi
USA

(2)

IN a miraculous chain of events, Nawaz Sharif’s name is off the exit control list. Just a few weeks ago, wasn’t he the most important prisoner in this country? The prime minister and some of his most zealous cabinet members never wasted time and effort in the recent past to heap trash on him and further agonise his sufferings.

For example, we know the prime minister during his visit to the US had promised to remove the air-conditioner and TV from Nawaz Sharif’s cell and had ridiculed him for his illness as well. We also heard from the PTI ‘let him return the billions he has looted and then he will be free to go abroad.’

Is this not a U-turn with a possible or temporary NRO combined in one package?

If Imran Khan wishes to become a great leader, he should be kind-hearted, amiable and reconcilable, avoid taking U turns.

Abbas R. Siddiqi
Lahore

(3)

IT is a truth that diseases purify soul and our politicians get purification after self-created diseases. Do we have so short memories that we forget everything?

Ishaq Dar was also seriously ill and went abroad for treatment but never returned. Zafar Hijazi was arrested in record tampering but he became sick and got ‘relief’, which is another form of corruption.

Dr Asim Hussain also became sick soon after his arrest and went abroad for treatment. Later, he came back and fully ‘recovered’. After NAB cases, he never suffered from any disease.

Now Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari are also sick. This mercy is only for the rich and the corrupt. Who will send all prisoners abroad for treatment?

In this scenario, I request the government to abolish the National Accountability Bureau and release all prisoners from jails and let us chant — corruption zindabad!

Zafar Ullah
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2019