Correct credit

The news of Abdul Hafeez Pirzada’s death was received with a sense of shock and grief by his friends, admirers, colleagues and followers. The media termed him a brilliant lawyer, parliamentarian and constitutionalist. So far so good. But at the same time they went on to say that Abdul Hafeez Pirzada played a pivotal role in the framing and passage of the 1973 Constitution. Here the shoe pinches. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto deserves the entire credit of authoring the first unanimously approved constitution of the country in 1973. However, Abdul Hafeez Pirzada did enjoy the confidence of Bhutto and worked diligently on the basic structure of the constitution laid down by Bhutto himself.
As far as crediting Pirzada as Bhutto’s defence lawyer in the murder case is concerned, it was Yahya Bakhtiar who was Bhutto’s lead lawyer and Pirzada joined Yahya Bakhtiar’s team only in the later stages of the case.
Rafat Mahmood Ansari
Islamabad