File photo of ousted Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif
The recently ousted Pakistan prime minister says Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was “not a rebel, rather made into one”
Drawing comparison between his current situation and what forced Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to declare independence of Bangladesh; recently ousted Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif has said that the Bangladeshi founding father was “not a rebel, rather made into one,” reports Pakistani daily The Dawn.
While speaking at a gathering of lawyers in Islamabad’s Punjab House on Tuesday, Sharif also conceded that no Pakistani administration has even bothered to even read the detailed report by the then Pakistani chief justice Hamoodur Rehman-led body, which was commissioned to assess Pakistan’s political-military involvement in East Pakistan from 1947 to 1971.
He also said the then Pakistani junta alienated the Bangalis from the Pakistani mainstream and eventually separated them.
Nawaz Sharif had to step down as prime minister after the country’s highest court disqualified him in a case related to alleged corruption during his previous two terms in office.
“[Bangabandhu] Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was not a rebel, but was made into one,” Sharif remarked, referring to the consequences that followed the then Pakistani military junta’s refusal to allow a popularly elected leader to hold the office of the prime minister.
“The Bengalis had a central role in the effort to create Pakistan, but we did not treat them well and separated them from us,” he said.
“The Justice Hamoodur Rehman Commission had published a very truthful and clear report on the creation of Bangladesh after a detailed analysis, but we did not even read it,” Sharif lamented.
“Had we acted on it, today’s Pakistan would have been different and the kinds of games that are being played would not have been played.”
Sharif also accused the Pakistan’s judiciary of complicity in weakening the democratic process, saying the past and incumbent judges had “legitimized dictatorships” and “invented the doctrine of necessity”.
“They [dictators] were told, ‘We will never ask you, no one will ask you’, and the nation kept quiet,” Sharif said, conceding that the nation had collectively been at fault.
Source: Dhaka Tribune.
