A petition to register a case against Malik Riaz has been submitted in the Supreme Court today on Thursday. Aaj News reported. Malik Riaz is a real-estate tycoon of Pakistan and the owner of Bahria Town housing schemes. He is also a key figure in a recent corruption scandal brought forward against Dr Arsalan Iftikhar, the son of Pakistan's Cheif Justice, Muhammad Iftikhar Chaudry.
The petition was brought forward to the apex court by Dr Shafiq-ur-Rehman. The petition states that a case be registered against Malik Riaz on charges of murder. The accuser states that Malik Riaz was involved in the murder of (retd) Lt Gen. Imtiaz Hussain and Dr Mansoor Janjua. The petition states that their murders were connected with an exchange of a staggering Rs 62 Billion in Bahria Town DHA scheme.
The petition has prayed the court to register a murder case against the accused Malik Riaz with immediate effect.
Recently Lt Gen [retd] Imtiaz Hussain apparently killed himself. The link below, however, informs us that a certain Dr Shafiq ur Rehman has lodged a petition in the Apex Court to charge Malik Riaz Hussain for the murder of the General. At first blush, the doctor's petition appears to be the action of a fevered mind bent upon heaping ignominy on a person, who does not need any outside help to add to his already formidable and justifiable claims to infamy, as the country's corrupter par excellence. And though there can be little doubt that the general's death was the result of suicide, there is his connection with Malik Riaz Hussain that could possibly have hurried him towards this end.
Malik Sahib is a man of great vision, energy, ambition, deceit, mendacity, utter ruthlessness, and sheer nerve. He has had huge success, made huge money, which entailed huge infringements of the law, against which he immunized himself by giving out huge bribes. And he bribed the high and the low, the holy and the not so holy, the politicians and the bureaucrats, and the judges and the military. He is the fairest man in the illegal distribution of largesse that ever lived; and also the politest -- a most felicitous confluence of hypocrisy and sycophancy.
His operating principle has been to play Robin Hood in reverse i.e to gouge from his investors and pay off the elites. And without these elites, both civil and military, so utterly bereft of moral sense or spine, such great 'success', as Malik Sahib's, would be unthinkable. Reportedly one of his more notable 'successes' in subversion was the late general, who became a crucial and necessary factor in the making of, perhaps, the biggest potential scandal in the army. A while ago, an email purportedly written by Lt Col [retd] Tariq Kamal, an ex-Director Engineering of DHA was doing the rounds. This sought to expose a DHA-Bahria contract which is a scam of mammoth proportions.
According to the Colonel's computation, Malik Sahib enriched himself by about Rs sixty billion as a result of this contract, and some of these pickings were generously distributed by him among those who facilitated his theft, one of the beneficiaries being the late general. Initially DHA Islamabad hired Malik Sahib's services for land acquisition. Malik Sahib being the head land mafiosi of the country, this selection must be considered to have been made on merit. Generally he was buying land at between Rs 20,000 and 50,000 per kanal, and palming it off to the army at between Rs 300,000 to 500,000 per kanal.
A huge amount of money was made in this operation, and a lot of it went around to sully many a well starched uniform. But that was not all. DHA was intent on making further "progress". It then signed a contract with Malik Riaz to develop some of the land which Malik Sahib had helped it acquire. The development charges for this operation were being paid by thousands of allotees, who were mostly middle ranking army officers and civilians of like financial standing. Under terms of this contract, the DHA was obliged to transfer all monies received on account of this development to Malik Riaz's coffers with 24 hours of receipt of the same. This would have been fine, assuming that the money was being used for the purposes for which it was intended. But this was not the case.
These funds were actually being used for everything but their assigned purpose. They were being used to acquire more land for Bahria Town [ i.e Malik Riaz], to buy properties abroad, and for further facilitation and hushing up the improprieties being committed by the man. All stirrings of protest were being regularly squelched by the army high ups, and indeed none of these found a sympathetic ear. Lt Col Tariq Kamal's was the very first protest which eventually broke through the surface. But the scandal was known earlier, though seldom talked about. General Imtiaz was the Adjutant General of the Army, and thus the ultimate boss of DHA Islamabad, when this infamous contract was signed. It was also well known then that he was also it's penultimate beneficiary -- the ultimate one being the great Malik himself!
After his retirement from the army he was rewarded with the stewardship of the Army Welfare Trust. And it was after his retirement from there that he came home and found the time and the leisure to fall into a depression which eventually drove him into suicide. There is a good body of opinion which feels that his depression was the brought on by fear of the chickens coming home to roost, as it is reasonable to assume they must. So, between the death of General Imtiaz and Malik Riaz Hussain there may well be an intimate connection. And few connections are more intimate than those between give and take.
But the stakes now have become considerably higher. Malik Riaz Hussain's attempt to subvert and compromise the Chief Justice of Pakistan through his son, was his final throw of the dice to bring down Pakistan's last bastion. Whether he just reached moat, or the bastion itself, remains a matter of conjecture. However this should be, this development is likely to pitch the government against the Supreme Court once again, for Malik Riaz Hussain was always the point man of the government. This time again matters will so transpire that the Supreme Court will look to the army as its constitutional enforcer of last resort.
The army will once more have to decide whether it will make its stand for Pakistan or Zardari, since a Supreme Court order, right or wrong, is the highest edict of the state. The choice therefore should not be a difficult one, or one which even admits of discretion. But there are reasons to believe that in the past four years the Supreme Court has twice sounded out the army on similar issues, only to be turned down both times. The result is that the country is now tottering on the brink. A third refusal by the army will take Pakistan beyond the brink, and with it the generals and the army. Naked theft can only masquerade as democracy just so long, and no more.
