Pointing back

In an editorial Friday, The Daily Times recommended that the interrogative lens be kept a while longer on the retired generals, listing many of their individual mis-steps. On Musharraf, it said: “We must insist that General (Retd) Musharraf apologise for the Kargil Operation which was more an example of professional incompetence than defiance of the Nawaz Sharif government whom he accuses of having agreed to the operation. He must apologise for undermining the visit of the Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee when Mr Sharif was prime minister.” And taking a composite view of security errors, the editorial added: “The biggest crime to which many retired generals must confess, and then apologise for, is the policy of seeking ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan because the consequences of this policy are now threatening to actually spell the end of Pakistan itself. In fact, some of these retired generals are too tainted for mouthing principles that the civil society of Pakistan has decided to uphold. They should zip up unless they are ready to give up what they have enjoyed over the years and are still enjoying at the cost of the nation.”

On Tuesday, Dawn welcomed the Inter-Services Public Relations’s announcement that the army would not be involved in the conduct of the general election on February 18. The army said it was responsible for law and order issues, but the conduct of the election would be the domain of the Election Commission. Could this be the start of General Ashfaq Kayani’s attempt to rescue the image of the Pakistan army, asked Nasim Zehra in an analysis in The News. The army’s top brass, she wrote, is aware of the “broader political and foreign policy context” in which it must meet internal security tasks. “To some extent there is déjà vu to this realisation within the army brass. After long stints of military rule the army’s prestige and popularity will always take a dip. For example the general’s attempt to resurrect the army’s image is no different from General Aslam Beg’s 1988 attempt to clear the army’s image in the immediate aftermath of Pakistan’s longest serving and most destructive military dictator, General Zia-ul-Haq. Twenty years later in 2008, in a different political and security context the army’s image has taken a greater pounding.”

Ahsan’s freedom

Aitzaz Ahsan’s 90-day detention came to an end on Thursday. When fresh detention orders were served, the lawyer-politician who had represented Chaudhry’s legal case against his suspension in March, pointed to a technical flaw in the procedure. By night the fresh detention orders were withdrawn (Dawn, February 1). A day earlier the newspaper reported that Musharraf had met Ahsan’s daughter Saman in Davos in a move facilitated by Klaus Schwab, executive chairman of the World Economic Forum. Musharraf is believed to have told her to ask her father to curb his opposition to the current regime.

Earlier the Supreme Court Bar Association had said lawyers would file a petition with the deposed judges of the Lahore High Court if Ahsan was not freed. “Article 10 of the Constitution, dealing with detention issue, says a person could not be detained under a preventive law for more than 90 days unless he or she is brought before a review board.”

On food street

Lahoris love their meal, and it seems they need harbour no complaints about what they are served. The city government, Daily Times reported on January 31, has put registers at all of Lahore’s restaurants for registering customers’ complaints about unhygienic food or cleanliness of the place. Four months later the registers are mostly empty.

mini.kapoor@expressindia.com