ISI stands exposed by own high court judges

What the six judges of Islamabad High Court wrote about ISI was an open secret in Pakistan–the ISI for long has been interfering and intimidating judges and others for decades. The only difference is rarely has half a dozen of the victim judges have dared to make it public.

The letter follows a recent Supreme Court judgement in which a former judge was cleared of charges imposed on him for calling out, during public discourse, that he was tired of being bullied around by the ISI goons in carrying out his judicial duties. The apex court played safe and cleared the judge of the charges, but refused to accept his prayer for an impartial investigation into his charges against ISI.

Now six Islamabad High Court judges have made far more serious allegations. They blamed the ISI for fixing video cameras inside the judge’s bedroom, abducting and torturing a judge’s relative to get orders and various other misdemeanours, all of which seem to have shocked the nation.

But should it? The ISI has been playing dirty for long–bullying, blackmailing and threatening public servants for years. The judges have been facing the brunt of the army’s muscle for decades now. The most infamous incident of General Pervez Musharraf walking into the residence of the Supreme Court Chief Justice and forcing him to resign at gunpoint. The judges have complained in confidential letters to their seniors how the ISI officers would visit them at their residences, and threaten them and their families.

Not that judges have not been hand in glove with ISI or the army. General Qamar Javed Bajwa, who preceded the current Army chief, colluded with senior judges to punish PMLN leader Nawaz Sharif and his family. His ISI chief Lt. General Faiz Hameed was leading the Charge Brigade. The gang even ran a WhatsApp group, fixing rulings and people with criminal abundance.

The issue is whether the Supreme Court Chief Justice, Faez Isa, will do anything concrete to this cataclysmic public airing of grievance against one of the most powerful institutions of Pakistan. Isa is clever. He began his tenure as the Chief Justice with considerable goodwill. Many thought he would be a strong judge. He projected himself as such. He made great noises against the army, without naming names. But soon after, for strange reasons, wilted and began punishing journalists who saw his game through. Many journalists were jailed, browbeaten and blackmailed by police and security agencies at the behest of the judiciary which felt maligned by truth. Isa was one of them. He did not bother to pay attention to a raucous protest and abuses hurled at him by an extremist group, Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, for releasing an Ahmadi person from charges of blasphemy. Not one TLP leader or member was arrested for threatening the most superior judge of the country. TLP enjoys patronage from the powerful army.

So Chief Justice Isa, most likely, will make good noise but he will not dare to challenge the ISI or the Army which must harbour some dark truths about him which make the judge lose his spine so often when it comes to the Deep State.