Since Gen Asif Nawaz died eight months ago, Begum Nuzhat Nawaz has firmly believed that he was poisoned to death. When she said as much to family members and close friends, she was told: “That’s not possible”. Senior army colleagues of her husband clucked in sympathy, but privately scoffed at the idea. This was perfectly understandable. The half a million strong Pakistan army was bruised when its high command was wiped out in an unexplained aircrash in 1988. It was now doubly difficult to live with the thought that another army chief could have been a sitting duck for assassins.
Begum Nawaz discreetly knocked on a few friendly doors. But everywhere the response was the same: “You’re imagining things, it’s dangerous to even think such thoughts, forget about it”.
But she couldn’t, though God alone knows how hard she must have tried. In a traditional society like ours, it’s not easy for a widow to ask for the body of her beloved husband to be hauled out of the grave and cut up for public scrutiny. But the more she mulled over the sequence of events since November 24th, when Gen Asif Nawaz was diagnosed as having suffered a bout of “food poisoning”, the more convinced she became of foul-play. By April, she had made up her mind. So she went public with her allegations and demanded an autopsy.
Mr Nawaz Sharif’s government promptly ordered an inquiry by three judges of the Supreme Court. In all, 23 witnesses, including Begum Nawaz, Gen Asif’s personal physician and a professor of medicine at the Army Medical College, appeared before the judges. The doctors concurred in the view that Gen Asif’s illness on the 24th of November was nothing extraordinary, that is why they had prescribed a tablet of Stemetil to sooth his nerves. Begum Nawaz, however, found the doctors’ statements “most surprising”. She disputed their version of events and found their testimony contradictory. She “begged the learned Commission to appreciate that in the absence of conclusive determination of the real cause of death by means of an autopsy, the statements made by all and sundry before this learned Commission merely tend to confuse the whole issue and amount to adding insult to the injury suffered by me and other members of the late General’s family”.
The Commission took all of 18 days to conclude that “Gen Asif Nawaz died a natural death on account of a massive heart attack. The allegations of poisoning are not correct”. It disposed of Begum Nawaz’s crucial demand for an autopsy by foreign experts in this ambiguous manner: “As the Commission lacks extra-territorial jurisdiction and has constraints both administrative and financial, it is for the government to consider these experts along with any other considered equally or more competent”. The Commission did not bother to send Mrs Nuzhat Nawaz a copy of its brief report.
Mrs Nawaz was greatly demoralized, she felt that justice had been denied her. If anything, aspersions were cast on her motives. So she determined to chart her own course. The results of her forensic inquiry showed fatal levels of arsenic in the hair sample which could have led to “delayed cardiac arrest”. She then did the obvious thing by filing a police report. But because she didn’t want to be accused of harbouring any political motives, she refrained from naming names. Faced with the same predicament, who would have done differently?
Mrs Nawaz’s demand for an autopsy cannot now be brushed under the carpet. No one should question her single-minded devotion to the memory of her husband. And no one should seek to exploit her quest for the truth by making political capital out of her grief.
If an independent and expert autopsy should prove her wrong, nothing more need be said. The widow has a right to allay her fears. Pakistanis in general and the armed forces in particular will also be able to breathe easier. The file can then be closed.
But if the autopsy should prove her correct, Begum Nawaz’s rights will pale before the angry demands of every Pakistani to unearth the assassins and execute them for premeditated murder of their revered army chief.
In the past 46 years, many political leaders have been assassinated. No government has ever made any serious attempt to uncover the truth or bring the assassins to book. No more, we say. Mr Moeen Qureshi must not drag his feet and pass the buck to the next government simply because he fears the results of the autopsy could conceivably have an adverse effect on his electoral plans.
Gen Abdul Waheed’s position, of course, is clearer still. He must brook no delays in conducting an autopsy. He owes it to the memory of his colleague, to every officer and jawan in uniform and to all Pakistanis to clear the air regarding Gen Asif Nawaz’s tragic demise. If the late COAS was indeed poisoned, the current COAS must track the assassins down with a vengeance that is exemplary.