Why is Imran refusing to bow before legal process?

Viewpoint

ISLAMABAD: Why is Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan scared, evasive to surrender to authorities in compliance with two separate warrants issued by an Islamabad Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP)?

Only he knows the answer to this question. However, it is believed that either he doesn’t want to be behind bars even for a few hours or wishes the federal government should arrest him and earn a bad name for “victimization” of its arch political rival. He is not gaining anything politically by refusing to bow before the legal processes.

Both the ATC and ECP have independently ordered the Islamabad police, obviously under the federal government, to take the PTI chairman into custody and present him before them. The ATC order is quite stringent that is always issued if an accused doesn’t present himself before it despite recurring summoning.

To skirt his detention, Imran Khan has once again challenged in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) the ECP warrants. Over the past few months, he has approached the IHC for a number of times, disputing the ECP’s jurisdiction to hear the foreign funding case as well as initiation of contempt proceedings but to no avail. However, he has been successful in delaying the proceedings in the ECP.

He has gone to the IHC although three days back he decided in a PTI meeting that he will “voluntarily” appear before the ECP. Nobody from the party has explained the change of mind. The decision was publicized as if he is prepared to give a big concession to the ECP.

Normally, every politician is too willing for arrest to embellish his career to subsequently assert that he has also suffered imprisonment for his pristine cause. For this purpose, Imran Khan has at times quoted his brief incarceration during Pervez Musharraf’s era. But now he is fearful of tasting the jail. On the other hand, he keeps emphasizing that deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and other members of his family must be thrown into prison for their “misdeeds”.

As per its well-considered decision, the federal government is not taking the PTI chairman into custody despite the warrants with a view to further damaging him for repeatedly avoiding his arrest. It also doesn’t want to face the political backlash for having apprehended him.

The contempt notice issued by the ECP might have been dealt with a long time ago without much ado had he appeared before it, but his consistent foot dragging has kept annoying the electoral body, which is in no mood to budge from its stand. Because of his unique approach, the contempt case has unnecessarily drawn for too long, painting him as defiant of legal proceedings.

Interestingly, the decision to issue non-bailable arrest warrants for Imran Khan was not unanimous by the five-member ECP. It was a 3-2 split determination with the chief election commissioner and the two members from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan on one side and the two members from Punjab and Sindh on the other. This gives a lie to his vociferous allegation he is hammering for over four years that the entire ECP is biased and out to penalize him and to favour the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). All the five members have equal say as superior court judges being part of benches have.

While Imran Khan had not missed even a single hearing in the Supreme Court in the Panama case for months and had been  holding daily pressers to take on his rivals, he has not appeared even once either in the apex court or the ECP when cases against him have been heard. He has used every effort to scuttle proceedings in the ECP.

The ATC arrest warrants for Imran Khan and Allama Tahirul Qadri keep reminding all and sundry about the torture by the PTI and Pakistan Awami Tehreek workers on Superintendent of Police Ismatullah Junejo during the violent 2014 sit-in.

Pitched against him in the ECP is an unremitting lone fighter like Akbar S Babar, who has relentlessly pursued the foreign funding case and contempt proceedings against him. Babar becomes a party to block the sought relief wherever Imran Khan disputes any move of the ECP.