The Daily Times: Yasser Latif Hamdani: In the current atmosphere, standing up to the US and citing due process in defence of Saeed seems like a very attractive idea. A smaller state standing up to a superpower in the name of law and procedure is the stuff of films

A 42-year-old hardworking, honest teacher at a government school in Rabwah was brutally tortured by police. The injuries he sustained led to his untimely demise. His name was Abdul Qudoos. The irony is that this law-abiding citizen for God knows what reason was picked up as a suspect in a murder investigation but was never formally charged. In a blatant violation of the constitutional rights guaranteed to the citizens of Pakistan under Article 10 of the Constitution, which requires production before a magistrate within 24 hours of the arrest beyond which custody is unlawful, Qudoos was tortured for many days and only allowed to go after it looked like he was not going to survive.

‘Due process’ of law you say? What due process of law? Abdul Qudoos was an Ahmedi. In an irony that is reminiscent of Orwell’s Animal Farm, in Pakistan’s ideological dystopia, all citizens are equal but some are more equal than others and others are far less. Ahmedis fall in that latter category. Due process is a fancy term reserved for the high and mighty and for hate-mongers like Hafiz Saeed. From the look of it, Saeed and his ilk have the right to due process in this country. Indeed the use of the words ‘citizen’ and ‘person’ seem entirely superfluous under the circumstances because the very exercise seems prejudiced against other citizens of Pakistan. For Saeed, Pakistan is willing to risk isolation and put the future of its people at stake. The underlying message of the bounty that seems to have evaded our policymakers is that the United States of America considers Pakistan a wilderness and a sanctuary for wanted terrorists. That however is not the point of the article. Even if one was to concede that there was by any stretch of the imagination a possibility that Saeed’s valuable rights are being infringed upon, our state is hardly in a position to debate the merits of the due process of the procedure with which the bounty was declared. Believe it is not, a constitutional challenge in the US — where need I remind our readers that the judiciary is fairly impartial– precedent shows that a court would most probably uphold the bounty.

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