US pressure

Published February 13, 2021

THIS is apropos the news story ‘Federal government to join review proceedings in Pearl case’ (Jan 31) about government’s decision to file a review petition, challenging the recent verdict of the Supreme Court to acquit Ahmed Omer Saeed Sheikh in the Daniel Pearl murder case.

This has seemingly been done owing to strong pressure from the United States as Secretary of State Antony John Blinken reportedly expressed serious concerns on the issue in his very first telephonic contact with Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.

It was only after that call that the federal government decided to join the review proceedings initiated by the Sindh government. The murder of any civilian is deplorable and Pearl’s murder is no exception to that, but should our government be doubling backwards to ‘oblige’ its so-called ‘ally’ even to the extent of appearing to be casting aspersions on our highest seat of judiciary?

Even more noteworthy is the striking contrast with which our then government handled the murder cases of two young Pakistani men at the hands of American mercenary Raymond Davis who was a so-called ‘contractor’ on our soil.

Just one telephone call by the then US president had forced the entire government into a flurry of activity to rush the man out of the country in indecent haste. The gullible citizens were then assured by the government that the US government had promised to hold him to trial in a US court. To this day, that promise has never been kept and he roams around as a free man since entering his homeland.

Headlines in the national media on the acquittal of the accused in the case of the murder of the American journalist — after due process of law — termed the decision a ‘travesty of justice’.

Has nobody thought of the families of those two innocent Pakistani boys who were coerced into accepting in an uncivilised manner and under dire threats ‘blood money’ for their sons’ death at the hands of a murderer who was then escorted out scot-free?

Could our worthy foreign minister not remind his US counterpart of that travesty of justice and a promise of holding trial of the murderer which was then never kept?

Capt M. Jamil Akhtar Khan

Karachi

Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2021

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