The Duel Read Online Free

often happens in a crisis, instead of acknowledging this and moving to correct it, the perpetrators decided on a show of strength. The first targets were independent TV channels. In Karachi and other cities in the south, three channels suddenly went dark as they were screening reports on the demonstrations. There was popular outrage. On May 5 Chaudhry drove from Islamabad to give a speech in Lahore, stopping at every town en route to meet supporters; it took twenty-six hours to complete a journey that normally takes three or four. In Islamabad, Musharraf plotted a counterstrike.
    The judge was due to visit Karachi, the country’s largest city, a sprawling, anarchic mass of 15 million people, on May 12. Political power in Karachi rests in the hands of the MQM (Muttahida Qaumi Movement/United National Movement), an unsavory outfit created in 1984 during Zia’s dictatorship. It began life in 1978 as a student group set up by Altaf Hussain with a membership restricted to Urdu-speaking students in the Sind. These were the children of Muslim refugees who had fled India in 1947 and sought a new home in Pakistan. Manyremained poor and suffered from job discrimination. The new organization played on these resentments and gave them voice, but soon acquired notoriety for its involvement in protection rackets and other kinds of violence. It has supported Musharraf loyally through every crisis.
    Its leader, Altaf Hussain, fled the country in the 1990s to avoid prosecution. He was given asylum in Britain and now guides the movement from a safe perch in London, fearful of retribution from his many opponents were he to return. In a video address to his followers in Karachi just prior to Chaudhry’s arrival, he said, “If conspiracies are hatched to end the present democratically elected government, then each and every worker of MQM . . . will stand firm and defend the democratic government.” On Islamabad’s instructions, the MQM leaders decided to prevent the judge from leaving the airport and addressing his supporters, who were assaulted in different parts of the city. Almost fifty people were killed. After footage of the violence was screened on Aaj TV, the station was attacked by armed MQM volunteers, who shot at the building for six whole hours and set cars in the parking lot on fire.
    Senior police officers, the chief minister, and the governor all failed to intervene, and a successful general strike followed, which further isolated the regime. A devastating report,
Carnage in Karachi,
published in August 2007 by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, confirmed in great detail what everyone already knew: the police and army had been ordered to stand by while armed MQM members went on the rampage:

. . . a matter of grave concern from the perspective of the institutional integrity of the state is the virtual withdrawal of the state’s security apparatus for almost 20 hours and the actual takeover of the city by armed cadres of more than one political party. The spectacle of a
disarmed
police force operating on the direction of
armed
cadres was highly disturbing, especially since key officers of the state were reduced to expressing their helplessness.

    Musharraf, trying desperately to keep a grip on the country, was now confronted with the possibility that a popular movement indefense of the chief justice might become uncontrollable, especially if the events in Karachi were repeated elsewhere. Fearful of the consequences of further repression, he had little alternative but to sound a retreat. The chief justice’s appeal against his suspension was finally admitted and heard by the Supreme Court. On July 20 a unanimous decision reinstated him, and shamefaced government lawyers were seen leaving the precincts in a hurry. A reinvigorated court got down to business. Hafiz Abdul Basit was a “disappeared” prisoner arrested for “terrorism” without any specific charge. The chief justice summoned Tariq Pervez, the director