‘Hang Dr Zulfiqar’

The government is obviously too busy with petty matters to have taken notice of a sinister move to subvert the sacred death penalty regime.

Some condemned prisoners have chosen to invoke the argument of double jeopardy in order to escape capital punishment. They argue that the punishment for murder is death or life imprisonment. They were awarded death sentence but they have been kept in prison for 14 to 25 years and have completed the term for life imprisonment. They cannot be hanged now because that would amount to punishing them twice for a single offence.

The matter is in court and comment on it should be avoided except for expressing the hope that the case will be decided according to the ideology of Pakistan. It is also necessary to respect the wishes of all those who have been starved of the pleasure of seeing human beings strung up the tiktiki (gallows).

The mischief-makers include one Dr Zulfiqar Ali whose aamal-nama (record) is so black that it cannot be summed up in these columns.

In order to ensure that he does not exploit a momentary lapse by our ever-watchful dispensers of justice it is necessary to inform the public of the misdeeds of the said Zulfiqar Ali.

He was accused of murder in 1998 and sentenced to death. He attributes his conviction to his lack of resources and inability to engage a competent lawyer. Poor excuse.

In our highly efficient state of Pakistan, poverty and lack of resourceful defence counsel has never resulted in the Western phenomenon called miscarriage of justice. But that is a relatively small matter. For what he has been doing in prison he deserves the Czarist punishment of being riddled with 40 bullets.

In prison the said Zulfiqar Ali started improving his academic qualifications. He acquired the following diplomas and degrees: MA in political science; DHMS (a four-year homeopathy course); diploma in Islamic medical science (two-year course); diploma in the study of Islam (one-year course); diploma in the study of hadith (one year course); diploma in Ilm-ul-Tazeer (six-month course); diploma in banking (one-year course); diploma in journalism (one-year course), diploma in mass communication (one-year course), and a medical assistance course (one-year programme).

Apart from holding a doctorate in herbal medicine from Allama Iqbal University Zulfiqar is also said to have done Masters in Business Administration and English.

The audacious fellow not only abused the prison facilities to add to his graduation certificate that he had in 1998 but also spread the poison of knowledge among fellow prisoners.

By April 2009 when he was due to be hanged, 12 of his pupils had done graduation, 23 had passed the Intermediate examination and 18 had passed the matriculation test. His jailers became accomplices. Not only did they allow Zulfiqar to be called ‘educationist’ they also sought his help in educating and motivating the prisoners to reform themselves. How perverse!

Before proceeding any further it is necessary to call the Adiala prison bosses to account for allowing Zulfiqar the freedom to achieve the academic distinction that free persons cannot easily win in open universities. What have they reduced their jail to? Is the Higher Education Commission aware of attempts to disrupt Pakistan’s wonderful penitentiaries by turning them into educational campuses that we can do without?

On another plane, the ulema have a duty to deliberate on the question whether a man sentenced to death can be allowed to study hadith and Islamic criminal law. (Forget what Abu Hanifa, Abul Kalam or Maulana Maudoodi or the heroes of 1857 did in prison; we have a new nazaria (outlook), thanks to a dictator who is often hailed as General Phansiwala).

This Zulfiqar Ali obviously has considerable persuasive powers. He convinced his wife of his innocence and the poor thing died of cancer. The same is perhaps the case with his two daughters who were babies when he entered prison. His friends will try to invoke people’s instincts for mercy with tales of the convict’s suffering in the death cell. All such efforts must be foiled, for Zulfiqar, like other death row veterans, is himself responsible for causing delays by exploiting legal loopholes and filing mercy petitions.

Attempts will also be made to sidetrack issues by citing examples of thieves’ becoming national heroes or of killers who won their freedom by paying blood money or by terrorising the victim’s heirs. It is nobody’s fault if Zulfiqar is neither rich nor a gangster. If fate had so willed he could have benefited from the Diyat law and become a successful doctor or lawyer or even a parliamentarian.

This didn’t happen. Let him be resigned to his fate. So far as the people are concerned they believe that the law must be upheld even if the heavens fall. We are sure the media dignitaries whose pens get frothy when they go for the abolitionists will not fail the state in defending its right to kill. Neither compassion nor reason should be allowed to interfere with the law. Dr Zulfiqar Ali must die. Murder can be forgiven but not illicit learning.

Tailpiece: Thank God and the Election Commission that the next head of state will have stood the test of Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution. Whatever he may as president be guilty of, the stigma of failing the Articles 62/63 criterion might not stick to him. What a pity the ECP authority is limited to elective offices although there is reason to apply 62/63 to all holders of high offices, including governors, judges, perhaps even members of the ECP. No need to inquire what the ulema of Baghdad were doing when the Mongols were breaking down the city gates. The tradition is alive.