Saturday, September 10, 2011

Dr. Zulfiqar Mirza versus Rehman Malik

September 7, 2011

By Saeed Qureshi

The chickens have come home to Roost. There is a massive spilling of beans by a former interior minister of Sindh against a sitting interior minister at the Center. Interestingly both belong to the same party. Using the third idiom one could also stipulate that it was like washing the indoor dirty linen of one colleague against another in the public.

No one would have entertained an iota of such a presumption that Dr. Zulfiqar Mirza a firebrand former interior minister of Sindh province and a high ranking stalwart of the ruling Pakistan peoples’ Party would rebel against his party. He resigned from all party offices.

His rebellious drumbeat is patently directed not only against Rehman Malik and MQM, but implicitly also his own party, the president of the party, the president of Pakistan, his bosom friend, his guardian angel and benefactor: the inimitable Asif Ali Zardari.

Primarily his target is the interior minister of Pakistan Rehman Malik whom Dr Mirza portrays as a devil reincarnate. He holds Mr. Malik as the principal villain stoking the fires of the bloody gang wars and for clandestine involvement in unremitting violence, incessant and spine chilling string of assassinations in Karachi.

The people of Karachi mostly from poor and backward sections of society are being killed every day by the mysterious snipers and unidentified sharp shooters now fearlessly stalking that largest metropolis of Pakistan.

Dr Mirza swore a solemn vow on the holy book Quran while leveling these unusual charges against his own party affiliate to drive home the point that what he was saying was truth and nothing but truth.

He charged that Rehman Malik was in unison with MQM to break Pakistan. To beef up his claim he flaunted a letter that he claimed was written by MQM to the former British prime minister Tony Blair.

He accused Rehman Malik of harboring the criminals elements, the extortionists, the merciless killers and thus was a public enemy and also the spoiler of the peace and law and order in Karachi of which he supposed to be the custodian.

He heaped excessive indignities on Rehman Malik by vilifying him in the strongest possible terms. He rudely spurned the appeasing remarks of Rehman that Dr Mirza was his brother. Vigorously cursing and emphatically castigating Mr. Malik, Dr Mirza roared that he can never be a brother of such a dishonorable person.

He blamed Mr. Malik to be a rank and compulsive liar who did not believe nor observe any moral principles, who maintains two faces, indulges in double speak and was outright hypocritical.

Dr Mirza implied that by sheltering the heinous killers and assassins, in collusion with MQM, he was an abettor of the terrorism and was therefore paving way for the dismemberment of Pakistan.

Dr Mirza’s stunning and unbelievable outpourings of extreme disgust about a top ranking member of PPP and a close confidant of the party’s chairman has taken the people by surprise. Such a unique condemnation of a minister from one’s own party might have few parallels in political feuds.


There are inner party rivalries for power, and tussle between vested interests that are seldom spilled out. But to lash out with least shadow of discretion, and the astonishing way Dr Mirza has lambasted and maligned a party heavyweight, a leading celebrity and a minister with a powerful portfolio, is unheard of.

Against these battle cries of deafening nature, the party and the government in power has maintained an eerie silence and is trying to deflect the impression that it is like a feeble wave of morning breeze that would pass away. There is not even a whimper of reaction or concern exhibited by the party leaders and particularly the prime minister and the president about this earth shaking charge sheet.

The aghast and wonder struck people are looking with utter disbelief and unusual awe why the government is unmoved. The PPP government has not even given the slightest indication as to what action or recourse it would adopt to look into the well-substantiated charges by a very intimate party fellow. The proposal of the constitution of judicial commission by Rehman Malik has been brusquely spurned by the prime minister for no cogent reasons.

If an enquiry commission is not constituted to look into the serious and egregious accusation of treachery and un-patriotism by a prominent member of the ruling coterie, against another heavyweight, then this is the end of the game for decency, rule of law and upright conduct of the people in power. People should get rid of these enemies masquerading as leaders and custodians of this land called the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

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