How political vendetta, murderous radicals and hotheads are turning Pakistan into a failed state

With each passing day, the theatre of the absurd plays to full strength in Pakistani politics.

Even as scarcity of flour and rising food prices take the lives of the people on the streets, Pakistan’s two main political parties – Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) are totally focussed in dismantling the other.

The ruling party knows no governance while the opposition keeps the country on tenterhooks.

PML-N has almost threatened the obliteration of arch rival Imran Khan. In retaliation, the opposition party has decided to wash Pakistan’s dirty linen in front of the diplomatic community, international organisations and the European Union.

On Monday, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah shocked the world by saying that either “he (Imran) will get murdered or us“. With Khan trumpeting from the rooftop almost everyday that people are out to assassinate him, Sanaullah’s remarks give credence to Khan’s bizzare allegations. His remarks are a flashback to Pakistan seven-decade old politics of blood and attrition.

To be true to Khan, who now enjoys a zombie mass following, he survived gunshot injuries in November 2022 after being fired upon in the Wazirabad district of Punjab. Well, Pakistan has a long list of high-profile political assassinations–Benazir Bhutto was killed in a gun and bomb attack; her father Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was hanged; General Zia-ul Haq’s plane crashed mysteriously and Pakistan’s first Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan was assassinated publicly on stage. By the way, General Pervez Musharraf was lucky to have survived a couple of assassination attempts.

In a massive legal crackdown, Khan is already facing at least 37 cases across Pakistani courts. The cases range from those of corruption to foreign funding, contempt to banking and, to complete the list, crime and terrorism. Khan, however, said on Twitter that he is facing an onslaught of 76 cases that include terrorism, blasphemy and sedition besides, of course, the threats to his life.

With Shehbaz Sharif’s party chasing Khan with a legal sledgehammer, the former cricketer’s party members also have cranked up the volume. It is not just the supporters fighting the police on streets with Molotov cocktails and stones, PTI party seniors have stepped up their game as well.

Khan’s colleagues former ministers Fawad Chaudhry and Shireen Mazari told the Pakistani media on Tuesday that they have prepared a report on “massive human rights violations” by the Shehbaz Sharif government which will be shared with the diplomatic community and international organisations. To help the foreigners understand the litany of Pakistan’s human rights abuses better, Khan’s party has compiled the dossier in English.

PTI leaders said their evidence can put Pakistan back on the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). This would not just be a defeat for the Sharif government but an acute global embarrassment for Pakistan and even for the cabal of Western countries that yanked it out of the terror-funding morass–the FATF.

The PTI leaders have timed themselves well – they aim to embarrass the Sharif government on its first one year anniversary in April.

If global human rights organisations are looking for evidence against Pakistan over “enforced disappearances and violation of human rights” besides custodial torture and killings, all they have to do now is contact Imran Khan and his party colleagues. Mazari and Chaudhury are more than happy to submit Pakistan’s dirty secrets to international organisations – which have looked the other way as the Islamic Republic of Pakistan abused its minorities and exported terror in the neighbourhood.

Pakistan’s politics of revenge, and also hate, has touched extreme levels in a country that is barely a whisker away from financial default and an economic collapse. And it is not just the politicians. Virtually all of Pakistan holds a grievance.

The judges are battling each other. The Pakistani army is at war with the Baloch, the Pashtuns and the Sindhis. The clerics are sexually assaulting and converting school-going girls to Islam while the radicals are busy sniffing out cases of blasphemy.

Also Read: Mystery shrouds 200 rotting bodies in Pakistan hospital, activists seek probe