“This is a serious issue, the man( Sarabjit Singh, accused of being an Indian spy and sentenced to death in Pakistan) has carried out terrorist attacks and killed people here. Now should I have sympathy towards him?” said Pervez Musharraf, President of Pakistan in an interview to the NDTV, an independent TV station from India. “Irrespective of what his family is thinking or how they are approaching their leadership in India, the man has killed people here, so one has to take a decision in a deliberate manner. I am basically a person who shows compassion and mercy,” he added.
In the same breath, in another interview to The Associated Press, a news agency, Musharraf said Sarabjit had “carried out terrorist attacks and killed people here” but the President added he would look into the legal aspects of the case.
Only a player of Musharraf’s calibre can play with the words. He is capable to talking something here and something there. He has held the man guilty without waiting for the verdit of the higher court. Covertly, he has shown his bias in the case to the judiciary in Pakistan.
Perhaps, Musharraf has forgotten that his double role of strengthening the Mullah factor to provide a valid pretext to stay on as a ‘massiah of secularism’ will eventually come back to strike him in the face.
Talking to the Associated Press, Musharraf said, “One has to take the decision in a deliberate manner,” he said. “It needs to come to me with all its legal implications, then only will I take a decision. But I am basically a person who shows compassion and mercy.” Sarabjit, who Pakistan claims is Manjit Singh, has been sentencd to death for his alleged involvement in the 1990 bomb blasts in Lahore and Multan.
On the other hand, Ahmed Rashid, a respectable Pak journalist said in his latest guest column for BBC News Online, “Just when most Pakistanis thought President Pervez Musharraf would be moving towards strengthening the elected civilian government and empowering parliament and Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali, he appears to be moving decisively in the opposite direction. In a series of moves in recent weeks the army has strengthened its grip on the nascent democratic system, creating a new political crisis at a time when the country is still facing the threat of terrorism, sectarianism and Islamic extremism.”
Via: NDTV
Associated Press
BBC
Comments
Musharaff is like a lazaron who walked into a xxx theatre and waited for it to close. The present Junta is being suckered very well by Press and Media which recieve significance Internationally but no personal rating. The man literally passed 75 Million dollars through Pakistan Press Information to journalists at begining of his term and Democratisation and Bush are keeping his exchequere warm . .I hope he gets out of this South Asian Earthquake trial .He is still a uniformed soldier and has been young during the long democratically struggling history of Pakistan and has sentimental strength over Politicians who too could not but just lose controls over Islamabad bureaucrats and Western Consultants . He is definitely very jealous and contradicionary towards Bhutto/Nawaz Regimes but his lawyers pushed him into taking oath under Islamic Republic through a new form of 73 Constitution International Conspiracy.The Pakistani Judges however were kept above which first the lawyers seemed to have read below but the Judges Oath of Office does not mention Pakistan as Islamic Republic of Pakistan and mentions Pakistan and Pakistan and Federation ,so however long the boys get to real posture because already his lower chin shows Pinochet and he has claimed to account full nation even if it takes only 25 years as it took him 6 years to rediscover his right arm whichs three centre fingers are still to be presented . Musharaff loves Royal Banquets ,he’s Musharaff with Bangldeshi stories! . They are all bold chaps [Musharaff Janjua Khalid ] who have moved to the otherside with all power and are struggling to cut out from the Iron Curtain of Press and International Conspiracy.