State will die if Constitution is breached: Achakzai

Seeks amendment to Article 6 of Constitution for implementation of his proposal

ISLAMABAD: In an extraordinary development, the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PKMAP) leader Mehmood Khan Achakzai on Tuesday demanded that Article 6 of the Constitution must be amended by adding a sentence that ‘the Federation of Pakistan shall cease to exist if the Constitution was abrogated or breached’.

He was speaking at a ceremony at the Parliament House in connection with the Constitution Day.The seminar titled “Concept of Parliamentary Democracy, Federalism and Constitution” was attended among others by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah and Punjab Governor Malik Mohammad Rafique Rajwana.

A galaxy of parliamentarians, constitutional and legal experts, university students, civil society members and media persons were also part of the event.“We must be given the freedom to become independent of Pakistan the day the Constitution is breached or abrogated in any manner,” Achakzai said and questioned “what is all this going on?”

He said it’s like making a mockery of the people. He said all those judges who had refused to take oath under the PCOs of military dictators must be honoured and paid salaries of the remaining period of their assignment as judges and this should be the joint resolution of the joint sitting of parliament.

“Those killed by dictators during the martial law regimes must be declared as martyrs of democracy while those judges who took oath under the PCOs must be condemned because we cannot hang them.

“I intentionally attended the funeral of Gohar Ayub Khan’s wife. She was the daughter-in-law of a military dictator who had imposed martial law in my country and imprisoned my father for 14 years. But I went there as his son had opted to become a part of the democratic system,” Achakzai said.

“I salute those generals who opted for democracy,” he said.

He maintained that the Constitution was the basic system to run the affairs of a village, a city, a country.“A country cannot be run without a constitution. Even the divine system is based on basic constitution — the holy Quran,” he said.

“Everyone will say Pakistan Zindabad if all the foreign and domestic policies are finalised only by parliament — the people’s representative institution,” he said.He said before taking oath he had told the-then speaker Gohar Ayub that he couldn’t take an oath under this Constitution as he could not defend its Article 6.

He said former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s death sentence was opposed by the judges of three out of four federating units — Balochistan, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — but he was still hanged.

“It was a wrong message to the Federation of Pakistan,” he said.“We have miserably failed to become a nation. There is nothing with the name Pakistani Qaum,” Achakzai said.

“We will never live in this country as a second grade citizen. How can we expect the people of tribal areas to raise slogans of Pakistan Zindabad after killing their so many children and destroying their homes, shops and businesses?”He said the state had killed many Baloch, Punjabis, Sindhis and Pakhtoons simply because of violation of Section 144. Such killings are in hundreds,” he added.

He said on May 12, Pakistanis were killed mercilessly on a road where there were offices of ISI, MI and Naval Intelligence but none asked what was happening and why the road was closed. He said the state had even failed to complete an inquiry into this horrible incident. He said a Tamasha was staged at the D-Chowk of Islamabad for 126 days and everyone knew the facts about it.

“We were jailed for years simply for making one man-one-vote demand. When the state itself adopted this system to save itself, no one can even say sorry to us for the atrocities committed by the state against us because of demanding one man-one vote system.

“We will save our Pakistan by becoming united with the Punjabis, Sindhis, Baloch and even with the generals but only if democracy is allowed to flourish,” Achakzai said, adding, “If democracy is not allowed, there’ll be a goodbye from our side.”

Speaking as the chief guest at the seminar, Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani asserted the people of Pakistan had rejected the presidential form of government and that the 1973 Constitution laid the foundation of a parliamentary dispensation of governance.

Rabbani said the 1973 Constitution laid the foundation for a parliamentary democracy and Pakistan’s political workers and civil society had rendered a long struggle to achieve this consensus document.

He pointed out that a strong Centre proved to be the reason of dismantling Pakistan and denying provincial autonomy was the gravest of faults.The Senate chairman contended that politicians today had the moral courage to admit bad governance, corruption but Pakistan was at a critical juncture of history and all major stakeholders of the country must admit their follies that they had misused the resources and that they had corrupted the system.

Leader of the House in the Senate, Raja Muhammad Zafarul Haq said that supremacy of Constitution ensured social integration and celebrating the Constitution was one of the many noble initiatives of Mian Raza Rabbani to ensure the same.

Senator Aitzaz Ahsan, who is the Leader of the Opposition in the Upper House of Parliament, while addressing the seminar said that the 18th Amendment had restored the Constitution in much of its original vigour of democracy, federalism, the concept of one man-one vote and essentially taking away the 58-2 (b) and restoring the supremacy of Constitution.

“We need to continue our efforts for the supremacy of parliament and Constitution,” the leader of opposition maintained.KP Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak, while expressing his views, said that the Constitution of Pakistan gave equal rights to all citizens and hence the same should be guaranteed to the people from all provinces regardless of their size.

He said the chairman Senate has made the Constitution Day a day of remembrance.Qaim Ali Shah also addressed the seminar and received grand applause from the audience for being a member of the Constitution drafting committee back in 1973.

Ensuring the presence of the fourth pillar of the state among the speakers of the seminar, prominent journalists Hamid Mir and IA Rehman were also invited to the ceremony. Hamid Mir said that this was the right time to celebrate the Constitution Day as there prevailed an argument that Pakistan needed a presidential form of government.

He further said when chairman Senate speaks of removing Article 6 from the Constitution, he does not mean it in the literal sense but he is in reality asking us to open our hearts and minds.IA Rehman gave a detailed account of Pakistan’s constitutional history and said that Pakistan’s parliamentary democracy was still in the making.