DAILY MAIL
26 April 2007
Parliamentary Secretary criticizes Aitzaz Ahsan

By Saad Ahmed

ISLAMABAD—Parliamentary Secretary for Economic Affairs Division and a leader of Pakistan Muslim League, Sheikh Waqas Akram, Wednesday questioned Ch. Aitzaz Ahsan’s professed commitment to upholding the honour of judiciary and freedom of the press.

Addressing a press conference here, the young politician from Jhang said that Aitzaz Ahsan had become a ‘two-in-one’ personality by politicizing the judicial matters.
“This is the same Aitzaz who was expelled from Tehreek-e-Istaqlal by his party on December 16, 1985 on the charges of self-promotion and self-projection,” the Parliamentary Secretary said.

“This is the same politician who appointed 20 workers of his party as judges when he was Federal Minister for Law. Those judges were later dismissed by the judiciary as most of those had never appeared before the court,” he said and added that those also included Ahmed Saeed Awan who was a convict in a murder case. “Why he did not resign when a criminal was made judge?” Waqas Akram asked.

The Parliamentary Secretary said the court slashed those appointments and gave a 350 page decision. He asked as to why Aitzaz Ahsan had not resigned in protest when PPP chairperson publicly said that she wanted to appoint her party’s Secretary General as Chief Justice of Supreme Court.

Waqas Akram and said he was questioning the so-called “custodian of the judiciary” who had questioned all the young MPs of the parliament terming them ‘under-19 politicians’.
“We are proud to be young politicians as we have no bleak past as Mr. Aitzaz does,” he said.

Waqas Akram referred to a report in ‘Sikh Times’ alleging involvement in handing over the lists of Sikh freedom fighters to Indian authorities when Aitzaz Ahsan was Interior Minister and demanded an answer.

He said the daily Nawa-i-Waqt had reported that Aitzaz Ahsan resigned from PPP in 1977 when Bhutto regime was facing a difficult time due to the PNA movement.

“The nation remembers that this is the same person who when he was Interior Minister, was involved in harassing and deporting a women journalist named Christina Lamb,” Waqas Akram said and added that why this worthy lawyer has not answered the allegations leveled against him by the renowned journalist Christina Lamb in her book, ‘Waiting for Allah- Struggle for Democracy’. Sheikh Waqas said that he suspected Aitzaz Ahsan’s complicity in attackon the office of Senator Dr. Khalid Ranjha as he had in the past “attacked the office of the then Chief Justice Lahore High Court Rashid Aziz Khan.”

http://dailymailnews.com/200704/26/news/dmcitypage06.html

WITH reference to Ms Anjum Niaz’s piece The price of loyalty (June 20), after topping the CSS examination held in 1970, Aitzaz Ahsan did not join the service. This he did to demonstrate his competence, capability and intelligence. His action of topping and not joining the elite service impressed Z.A. Bhutto who wanted young people to join his party.

When Chaudhry Anwar Samma, a PPP MPA from Gujrat, was murdered in March 1975, Aitzaz Ahsan was elected, ‘un-opposed’ to the Punjab Assembly and inducted in the provincial cabinet. He was given the portfolio of information, planning and development.

But the more interesting fact is that the ‘Chaudhry from Gujrat’ left the party at the most crucial time. When the PNA staged demonstrations against PPP government in 1977, on the allegation that elections had been rigged, Aitzaz was third to leave the party; the first being Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan, followed by Sardar Ahmad Ali, father of Sardar Assef Ahmad Ali, a former foreign minister.

One can understand the betrayal by Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan and Sardar Ahmad Ali, as both had joined PPP from Muslim League. Changing loyalties by Muslim Leaguers, at the behest of the establishment, had started immediately after Partition and still persists. Formation of the Republican Party is a classic example. But Aitzaz was one, whom Z.A. Bhutto had brought from oblivion to limelight, from an upcoming advocate to a provincial minister, thus his action was absolutely unjustified. Maybe he had information that the establishment had written off Z.A. Bhutto from the politics of the country. So when he left the party, he practically supported the cause of the PNA.

He remained dissociated with the party, till Bhutto was hanged. Later when he wanted to join the party, Begum Nusrat Bhutto, chairperson of the PPP, refused to accept him, asking him to beg pardon from late Z.A. Bhutto, whom he had betrayed.

Afterwards he crept in the party through his professional services to the PPP and managed forgiveness via Benazir Bhutto. I have written these lines to put the record straight.

HAFEEZ AKHTAR
Lahore
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/dmag/archive/040718/dmag22.htm