From power to prison—Pakistani presidents, premiers, politicians

LAHORE: Pakistan has a long and unenviable history of jailing its former prime ministers and presidents, either before or after their tenures.

Here follows a brief chronology and timeline in this context:

In January 1962, the country’s fifth Prime Minister (1956–57), Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, was sent behind bars after he had refused to endorse General Ayub Khan’s military takeover. He was banned from politics through the Elective Bodies Disqualification Order (EBDO). He was handcuffed and put in solitary confinement in the Central Jail of Karachi without trial.

Daily “Dawn” had reported he was punished on concocted charges of anti-state activities under the 1952 Security of Pakistan Act.

The “Times of India” has also given a list of the arrests of Premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (Sept. 1977) for conspiring to murder a political opponent in 1974.

The Indian media house writes: “Bhutto was released by the Lahore High Court. Justice Khwaja Mohammad Ahmad Samdani stated that his arrest had no legal grounds. But Bhutto was arrested again three days later under Martial Law Regulation 12. The regulation empowered law enforcement agencies to detain anyone who obstructed security, law and order, or the efficient execution of martial law. This law could not be challenged in any court of law. Bhutto was ultimately given a death sentence and put to death on April 4, 1979.”

Premier Benazir Bhutto was put under house arrest in August 1986.

Quoting Pakistan’s “Dawn” newspaper, the “Times of India” has added: “In May 1998, the Ehtesab (Accountability) Bench of the Lahore High Court issued bailable arrest warrants for Benazir Bhutto. In June 1998, the Public Accounts Committee issued an arrest warrant against Benazir Bhutto. In July 1998, the Ehtesab Bench issued a non-bailable arrest warrants for Benazir Bhutto, and again in April 1999, she was sentenced to five years and disqualified from holding public office by the Ehtesab Bench on being accused of taking kickbacks from a Swiss company hired to fight customs fraud. She had fled the country at the time of the verdict, and the conviction was later overturned by a higher court. In October 1999, the Ehtesab Bench again issued a non-bailable arrest warrant for Benazir Bhutto as she did not appear before the court in the assets reference case. Benazir was again placed under house arrest for a week in Punjab in November 2007 at PPP Senator Latif Khosa’s home to stop her from organising a large protest against Gen. Musharraf’s authoritarian regime.”

Another former premier, Nawaz Sharif, was exiled in 1999, placed on house arrest in 2007, removed as PM by the Supreme Court in 2017, and sentenced to seven years in prison a year later. In 2019, Nawaz Sharif applied for bail in the corruption case and flew to London, citing medical reasons. He currently resides in the UK.

In July 2018, the “Financial Times” reported: “Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister of Pakistan, was arrested after he landed in Lahore to begin a 10-year jail sentence for a corruption conviction. Mr. Sharif was sentenced in absentia last Friday for failing to accurately disclose the source of funds for the purchase of four luxury flats in London’s Mayfair district. Mr. Sharif was arrested along with his daughter Maryam, his presumed political heir. She was sentenced to seven years in prison for the scandal, which has convulsed Pakistani politics over the past two years.”

Sitting Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was arrested in September 2020 by the anti-graft watchdog, the National Accountability Bureau, after the Lahore High Court rejected his bail plea in a money laundering case.

Shehbaz was taken into custody from the court’s premises, where a large number of PMLN workers and supporters had gathered ahead of the hearing.

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi was arrested by the NAB in a corruption case involving the awarding of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) import contract. He was arrested in 2019, about a year after his brief tenure at the top post ended.

In June 2019, Pakistan’s former president Asif Ali Zardari was arrested on corruption charges after a court rejected his bail application.

Zardari has spent more than 11 years in jail on charges ranging from corruption to murder and money laundering. He was first jailed from 1990 to 1993 and then from 1996 to 2004.

A lot of other prominent Pakistani politicians have been arrested in the last 70 years. These include the likes of Jamaat-i-Islami founder Maulana Maududi, who was arrested in 1953 by the military deployment headed by Lieutenant General Azam Khan and sentenced to death for his part in the anti-Ahmedi agitation. However, strong public pressure ultimately forced the government to release him after two years of imprisonment.

Nationalist leader Ghaffar Khan was arrested in 1948 and jailed for seven years. In 1956, he was arrested for protesting against the establishment of ‘One Unit’ in West Pakistan. He was kept in prison by Ayub Khan’s regime until 1964.

ANP’s Wali Khan was arrested on February 8, 1975, after the assassination of Pakistan People’s Party leader Hayat Sherpao in a bomb attack on the Peshawar University campus.

Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan was detained time and again for being very vocal against military rulers. Ziaul Haq, who ruled for a decade, put Nawabzada under house arrest for nearly five years. During Musharraf’s government, he headed the 16-party Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy and was briefly arrested for announcing a rally in Lahore.

Begum Nusrat Bhutto was frequently put under house arrest and detention during the 1970s and 1980s.

MQM founder Altaf Hussain was arrested and sentenced in October 1979 to nine months imprisonment and flogging with five strokes. He was later released in April 1980 after he had served his sentence.

He was imprisoned for the second time in 1986 for a provocative speech and released in 1987.

Altaf Hussain had again surrendered to law enforcement agencies in August 1987 on the condition that further arrests of his party’s workers would be stopped immediately. During his imprisonment, the MQM comprehensively won the local body election of 1987, and there was pressure to release him. He was released in January 1988.

Similarly, Maryam Nawaz, Hamza Shehbaz, Aleem Khan, Javed Hashmi, Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed, Faryal Talpur, Khawaja Saad Rafique, Salman Rafique, Rana Sanaullah, Ahsan Iqbal, Khawaja Asif, Khursheed Shah, Pervez Rasheed, Agha Siraj Durrani, Sibtain Khan, Maulana Abdul Sattar Niazi, Jamaat-i-Islami Chief Mian Tufail, Asghar Khan, General Hameed Gul, Manzoor Wattoo, Faisal Saleh Hayat, Ali Wazir, Ali Amin Gandapur, Fawad Chaudhary, Azam Swati, Shahbaz Gill, and Mohsin Dawar, etc. have all spent days and nights in prison, courtesy the corruption cases against them and the wishes of their political adversaries calling shots in the power echelons.