Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif might have narrowly escaped the jinx attached with April, a month in which Pakistani premiers have previously been overthrown, sentenced to life and hanged.
Sharif, 67, on Thursday narrowly survived being disqualified after a 3-2 split decision by a Supreme Court bench which ordered setting up of a Joint Investigation Team to probe the allegations of money laundering against his family.
Interestingly, the apex court verdict comes in the same month during which previously Sharif was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2000 and his government was sacked in 1993. Prime Minister Sharif’s Government was sacked by then President Ghulam Ishaq Khan for alleged corruption in April, 1993.
The next time April spelled doom for Sharif when he was sentenced for life by a court on April 6, 2000 in the infamous ‘plane hijacking case’ based on allegations that Sharif as Prime Minister had disallowed to land a plane carrying then army chief Gen Pervez Musharraf, who had toppled Sharif’s government in 1999 in a bloodless coup.
However, other Pakistani premiers too have suffered a bad fate in April.
The worst April in history of the country was April 4, 1979 when former prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was hanged for criminal conspiracy to kill a leading politician.
The hanging followed a dubious court proceeding allegedly orchestrated at the behest of military dictator Zia-ul-Haq who had overthrown Bhutto’s government in 1978.