Pakistani lawyer’s killing is part of larger plan
The killing of Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali, the chief Pakistani prosecutor investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, has all the ingredients of a desperate cover-up and points straight at the country's state actors. First, it is highly unlikely that a major attack such as this could have been carried out without express orders from above. Also, given the spectacular nature of the hit — gunmen sprayed the prosecutor's car with a volley of bullets in broad daylight in the midst of a busy neighbourhood in suburban Islamabad — it is clear that attackers wanted to send out a message; a message that must be viewed against the backdrop of recent developments in cases that Zulfiqar Ali was working on. For one, the Benazir Bhutto assassination case has been making headlines again. Former President Pervez Musharraf, who returned to Pakistan last month after four years in self-imposed exile to contest the general election scheduled for May 11, has been charged with failing to provide adequate security to Bhutto and placed under house arrest. On April 30, Zulfiqar Ali had argued in court that General Musharraf should not be given bail as there was “solid evidence” that “directly connect the accused” to the former Prime Minister's assassination. Add to this the fact that Pakistan's military establishment has reportedly been alarmed by the treatment meted out to Gen Musharraf since his return, and slowly the pieces begin to fall into place.
Alongside the Benazir Bhutto case, Gen Musharraf is also facing charges of treason for detaining judges after he imposed Emergency in 2007 and is also being tried for his role in the murder of a Baloch separatist leader. Each of these cases has gained ground in recent weeks, in the course of which Gen Musharraf has also been prohibited from contesting elections for the rest his life. There is now a definite possibility that for the first time in Pakistan's history, a former Army chief might actually be convicted and put behind bars. However, given that this is also the first time in Pakistan's history that a civilian Government has completed its full five-year term and will hand over charge to another democratically elected regime, the military understandably does not want to be seen as meddling in public affairs. Also, trying to manipulate a judiciary already antagonised by Gen Musharraf who, anyway, does not enjoy much popular support, is probably not worth the effort. But that is not all. Apart from the Bhutto case, the prosecutor had also made progress in the 26/11 case, wherein a witness had recently identified one of the seven men indicted by him in 2009 as the person who had bought the inflatable boats used in the 2008 Mumbai attack. India has consistently held the attack had the implicit support of the Pakistani security establishment, and there is reason to believe this new piece of evidence might have implicated the Pakistani state actors even further.