The Supreme Court on Thursday compared the federal government to the notorious Sicilian Mafia of Italy as it decided to initiate contempt of court proceedings against former party leader and Senator Nehal Hashmi for ‘threatening’ judges and members of the joint investigation team probing Sharif family’s business dealings abroad.
Now a day’s son of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif Hussain Nawaz is attending the hearings of JIT in Panama case. Nehal Hashmi, now a former Senator, while addressing in a political gathering on May 28 threatened the government servants destined to probe sharif family under JIT in connection with Panama papers. In the video went viral on social media, he can be seen issuing threats to those probing the Prime Minister and his family’ over the Sharifs’ business dealings abroad. He said that “We will make this land (Pakistan) narrow for you and your children. You are now in service, but will retire one day. We will not leave you then. You are making the life of the prime minister difficult. The Pakistani nation will make it difficult for you to live. We are the workers of Nawaz Sharif… We will make an example of those who hold us accountable”. But in contempt of court proceedings against him, Nehal Hashmi in the Supreme Court maintained that his speech was not against any judge or member of JIT but it was a general address in a party workers’ convention.
The immoral and unlawful speech of Nehal Hashmi is strongly condemnable, because a republic cannot survive a situation where citizens go about threatening fellow citizens or public officials with dire consequences for lawful actions. It is unfortunate to know that a Senator is threatening members of a JIT formed under a democratic process. Very often political leaders talk about the dangers to democracy in the country. But it is quite absurd that they themselves are not willing to respect the democratic norms. Perhaps it is in the political culture of the country to put hurdles in the way of transparent accountability of ruling elites. But this trend and culture needs to be changed if the political parties want to strengthen democracy in Pakistan and to gain confidence of masses.
Culture of putting hurdles in the way of transparent accountability of ruling elites must strongly be condemned.