The altercation of Mohsin Baig with an FIA team attempting to arrest him, and his subsequent arrest by the Islamabad police after he fired upon the FIA team and allegedly held it hostage should not obscure two important issues. First, Mr Baig should not escape unpunished for his remarks about Communications Minister Murad Saeed, made on a TV programme. Second, the government seems now to be using the FIA to persecute its political opponents, which apparently now includes those who might embarrass individuals within the government. It was an Islamabad sessions court which said that the arrest was unjustified.
The manner of the arrest reflects an over-enthusiasm and high-handedness that seems to infect the FIA, which seems to be vying with NAB to show itself more able at persecuring opponents of the government. The FIA came under scrutiny after it played a key role in crushing onetime PTI secretary general Jehangir Tareen, to the extent that he was forced to mobilize support to ask Prime Minister Imran Khan that he get a fair shake from it. The Cybercrime Act has been applied in the present case, which seems a little extreme for remarks made on a TV show. The cybercrime law’s natural application should be spreading things on the internet rather than remarks made on TV, especially when PEMRA is already seized of the matter, and has taken action against the channel broadcasting the offensive programme.
The episode shows that the purpose of the episode may well have been achieved. Legally valid or not, Mr Baig has been shown that he can be dragged from his home and taken to a police station, and crime of offending a powerful person would be punished. It has shown the general public that the instrument for visiting such punishment upon the head of an offender would be the FIA, using a law it is coy about implementing when approached by an ordinary citizen who might fall victim. Mr Saeed should receive justice for any offence against his reputation, but he should find a means which would be available to him even when he is out of office, and should depend on his being in power.
