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Monday July 14, 2025

Govt to decide on removal of Musharraf’s name from ECL

By Tariq Butt
March 17, 2016

ISLAMABAD: Even after upholding the Sindh High Court (SHC) ruling by the Supreme Court on removing Pervez Musharraf’s name from the Exit Control List (ECL), the ball is in the federal government’s court to allow or restrict his foreign travel.

However, from what Attorney General Salman Aslam Butt stated in the apex court on Wednesday, it was abundantly clear that the government has not barred Musharraf’s foreign travel but had done so on the court’s order.

Now the Nawaz Sharif government will decide whether to keep or remove Musharraf’s name from the ECL. Opinion has always been split among senior government leaders about the developments related to the former dictator. Even before Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had announced to file a complaint in the special court for initiation of the high treason proceedings, the clashing views had emerged in a high level meeting about trying him on this allegation.

If the government doesn’t erase his name from the ECL or the special court trying him on the high treason charge issues an order to keep this restriction on him till the disposal of the case, Musharraf’s lawyers can challenge it in a superior court. However, this will trigger a new round of litigation that will obviously take a long time to conclude. Till that time, he would be unable to leave for a foreign country for which he is now very eager. The former general will certainly call the government decision to impose restriction on his foreign travel as a political vendetta, but this power is in its legal domain.

On June 12, 2014, the SHC had struck off Musharraf’s name from the ECL but kept its decision suspended for two weeks to give the government time to appeal against its verdict. Later, the government challenged the SHC judgment on which the apex court handed down its ruling on Wednesday.

The decision came amid reports of frequent visits of Musharraf to different Karachi hospitals for his back problem. He has consistently beseeched that he needs treatment abroad as it was not available in Pakistan and that his condition was very critical and it may lead to paralysis.

Also, the ruling came when the high treason trial against Musharraf is fast maturing for a verdict after the Supreme Court held that only Musharraf should be arraigned for the grave offence and former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, ex-Law Minister Zahid Hamid and retired judge Abdul Hameed Dogar, declared as collaborators and abettors by the special court and upheld by the Islamabad High Court, should not be investigated in the case.

However, it is a foregone conclusion that once the former general departs from Pakistan, disentangling himself of the difficult situation, he is unlikely to return in the near future as the going is tough for him here and there is no likelihood of any immediate change in it. In 2013, he had flown back into Pakistan due to his misplaced optimism that he will be accorded an unprecedented hero’s welcome. However, he got a huge cold-shoulder and snub from all political players, which refused to break bread with him. Rather his woes intensified. It was thus proved that he committed a gross mistake and plunged himself into hardships.Over the past three years, he has been hiding behind one pretext or the other to avert his appearance in different courts which are hearing criminal cases against him. He was lucky enough that he and others were recently acquitted by a Quetta anti-terrorism court from the murder charge of Nawab Akbar Bugti although he did not show up even once. Bugti’s son has appealed against the decision in the Balochistan High Court. However, other cases, the most serious being the high treason, are pending disposal.

One bitter fact to which Musharraf has never reconciled is that he has no political prospects whatsoever like every military dictator, who became big nonentities once they were out of power. He had no political following to fall back on. Although he midwifed and did everything to thrive the PML-Q, then known as the king’s party, it also ditched him even in the 2008 elections on the grounds that he paved the way for its massive defeat.

For quite some time, Musharraf relied on the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which he pampered in an unparalleled manner during his rule, but it also never extended the kind of support he desperately wanted. However, it did provide its lawyers to represent him in different courts which are seized with cases against him.

If Musharraf finally succeeds in exiting from Pakistan, it will be a win-win for him as well as the federal government although some hardliners in the prime minister’s team and others would not be happy over his departure because they want to make him an example for committing high treason.

He will be happy and kicking abroad while the government will get rid of an unnecessary irritant, allowing it to implement its impressive elaborate development agenda that is changing Pakistan fast.