Azam Ali, An Ahmadi Moslem
Chapter 09 – An Illustration
The Holy Qor-aan states many rules of universal application. Illustrations of the applications keep showing all around us. Some of them materialize on personal levels of individuals. Some of them occur on much wider scale on community and national levels. One of them Pakistani people saw with their own eyes is the following example.
Zulifqar Ali Bhutto ruled Pakistan as an absolute dictator with an iron-fist dressed up to look like a genuine democracy by greasing, coercing and bribing the cooperation of thoroughly corrupted clergy and perpetually hungry politicians. Father had a clear, candid and convincing opinion about politicians’ political motives and actions. He lamented about the alliance between Bhutto and clergy and atrocities they committed in the name of the government. In the High Court Bar Association he expressed his resentment against Bhutto’s government’s misdeeds.
Law recognizes a process known as the eminent domain. It allows the government to acquire private property for public good by paying a fair market value to the private owner. There are three essential elements of the process.
- Firstly, for the legal process to get triggered the property is generally undeveloped land.
- Secondly, the property is needed for the larger good of the public.
- Thirdly, a fair market value is paid to the property-owner which usually is the land-owner.
Corrupt governments in several uncivilized countries abuse this process to usurp developed properties. They snatch away income-producing, productive or developed property from its owner to benefit one of their cronies as if a hired employee to run, operate and control it. Bhutto was a law graduate who knew well what the law was and how to abuse that process by dressing it to look like ‘in accordance with the law.’ He labeled his high-handedness ‘Nationalization’ whereby his crooks arbitrarily took over properties and businesses without compensating their owners and operators.
Bhutto’s dictatorial regime nationalized many Rice Husking factories and installed one of his cronies to loot it under the ownership of government without paying a penny to factories’ owners. My younger brother after years of hard work had bought a small tract of land. He set up on it one piece of machinery after another until he could operate his small business as a rice husking factory. His factory was also nationalized with no compensation. One day he was a self-made businessman who owned his own business raising his family and paying his bills but next day he was left with no job, no work and no money.
Father was a Judge who all his life had fairly provided justice to others and judicially struck down injustices of all kinds knew the law of eminent domain very well. He was highly disturbed by the brazen day-light robbery by Bhutto regime which totally outlawed all judicial remedies that a citizen ordinarily had in such situations. The abuse of the process of law that damaged his son hurt Father beyond words. He often said, “What can the people do when the government itself becomes the oppressor.”
On December 26, 1974 Father and I were in Rabwah at the end of the Annual Conference. Father took me with him in a meeting with the Head of the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam, Hafiz Mirza Nasir Ahmad, Khaleefatool-Massih III r.a. The above occurrence was on Father’s mind and during the meeting Father mentioned it and said that such grave injustices generated Bud Doaa (invoking curses) from the core of citizens’ hearts against their own government. The Khaleefa knew the effectiveness of Father’s prayers and quickly remarked, “Chaudhry Sahib, don’t wish bad for Bhutto. He needs our prayers.” Father bowed to his spiritual leader.
But Bhutto regime on September 7/8, 1974 had already amended the Pakistan Constitution and declared Ahmadis as non-Muslim. Millions of them were legally reduced to worse than a third-class minority for whom speaking the words of greeting us-sa-laa-mo-aai-koom (peace on you) was made a crime punishable with three years imprisonment under the Pakistan Penal Code. Other examples of such harsh legislations are detailed elsewhere on this site.
The deep-rooted hurts in the hearts of so many God-fearing people are not dissolved by the mere words, even when spoken by their leaders. Bhutto regime for years had crushed its own citizenry. Someone somewhere saw it all.
It was no surprise to us when later on Father saw in a dream that a pig climbed a few steps up on a ladder and then fell on the ground and lay on his back with its all four legs raised like a stray dead dog. Father right away interpreted this dream to mean that Bhutto’s end had come near and in death he would be disowned, discarded and dishonored like a pig or stray dog.
Not too long after that dream, this formidable dictator of Pakistan was imprisoned, tried, convicted and eventually ‘hung by the neck till dead’ for scheming and causing the premeditated first degree murder.
The Judicial records show that Attorney Ahmed Raza’s car was sprayed with a machine-gun burst. He was the intended victim, but due to a change in the front seat passenger he got saved. Instead his father Nawab Ahmed Khan who at that time drove the car got murdered. Military commander Col Rafiuddin who supervised Bhutto’s execution wrote in his book Last 323 Days https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1993/10/04/bhuttos-fateful-moment and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3BrhlvS2aMthat Bhutto was alert in good health when he feigned faintness as a last maneuver to avoid execution. He was carried by the guards by head, hands and feet to the execution chamber where he was finally executed by hanging. Reading the story of Bhutto’s execution brings to mind the following description of such fate sketched in the Holy Qor-aan. “Yoe-ra-fool -mooj-ray-moo-na-bay-see-maa-hoom Fa -yoe-kha-zo -bin-na-waa-see-wul-uq-daam.” — Soora-toor Rahmaan, Chapter 55, verse 42
Translation
The criminals would be recognized by their markings. Then they will be caught by the forelocks and feet – 055:042
The one who got credit for inflicting on Bhutto such a humiliating death was his own favorite army General Zia-ul-Haq whom Bhutto had brought forward and promoted – allegedly out of line, seniority and merit – with the sole qualification that the General used army’s muscle to implement all nefarious designs that Bhutto’s scheming mind used to conjure up.
