It is perhaps not the time to examine why former PMs end up behind bars, especially if they have a large public following. More immediately, PTI chief Imran Khan’ filing with the Islamabad High Court an application asking for the grant of ‘A’ Class privileges shows that he has had enough after just three days behind bars. Without belittling Mr Khan’s tribulations it should be pointed that these sufferings are a corollary of punishment for an offence. Mr Khan’s request for an air-conditioner and a TV cannot but recall his own boast, while PM, when addressing the Pakistani community in New York, that he would ensure that Mian Nawaz Sharif would have his air-conditioner removed. It also recalls the conditions under which he had another ex-PM, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, held. It is perhaps not the right time to go into the rights and wrongs of the cases against Mr Khan or Mr Sharif, who was wrongfully convicted, who rightly. However, in Mr Abbassi’s case, he was held on physical remand by NAB, and was never convicted of any offence. For what it is worth, Mr Sharif was convicted by a court, just as much as Mr Khan has been convicted by one. Both should remember that if one verdict could be manipulated, so could the other. It is perhaps best to let all matters be settled in court. Mr Khan has every right to try to obtain his legal rights by approaching the courts. However, it seems a little odd that he should be asking for rights which he had denied to others.
Mr Khan evokes a certain surprise for those who, without being supporters, had credited him with a certain raw courage. Even if former PMs proved pusillanimous, one would expected a former national captain to have shown more resolution in adversity. Clearly, it now seems, the party insiders who made the Jail Bharo Tehrik such a flop, knew something the man in the street did not.
The positive is that, whether guilty or wrongfully convicted, Mr Khan has now the leisure to think. He can either repent his crimes or think about what he had done wrong in his term of office. If he makes any plans for revenge, or indulges in any such negative thoughts, he will be wasting his time in jail. And in jail, all that one has is time.
