ISLAMABAD: Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Omar Ayub said Defence Minister Khawaja Asif’s “personal” remarks about former dictator Ayub Khan were “unwarranted”.
Speaking on the floor of the Lower House, he said that Ayub Khan — his grandfather and father of former NA speaker Gohar Ayub — was a “part of history”.
A day ago, the NA saw frequent noisy protests by the opposition members, as Asif launched a blistering counterattack against PTI’s Ayub after the latter accused the military establishment of interfering in the country’s political affairs and Feb 8 elections.
Ayub, highlighting the Constitutional limits for state institutions, had suggested that violators of the Constitution should be tried for treason under Article 6 (high treason).
Criticising last week’s “political” press conference by the director general (DG) of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Ayub had said: “Security agencies cannot indulge in politics as per the Constitution,” adding that they were “tools of the state, not the state itself”.
In a searing response, Asif had said that accountability should begin with former dictator Ayub Khan and called for his body to be “dug out and hanged as per Article 6”.
Article 6 of the Constitution says: “Any person who abrogates or subverts or suspends or hold in abeyance, or attempts or conspires to abrogate or subvert or suspend or hold in abeyance the Constitution by use of force or show force or by any other unconstitutional means shall be guilty of high treason.”
The punishment for high treason is death or lifetime imprisonment, according to the High Treason (Punishment) Act, 1973.Today, Ayub said: “The personal remarks he (Asif) made there; they were unwarranted”.
At this, the NA speaker noted that Asif had not mentioned Ayub by name, to which he replied that the defence minister had taken his family and grandfather’s names as well as used “non-parliamentary words”.
The opposition leader added that the martial law referred to by Asif had been imposed by Iskander Mirza: “That is a historic fact.”“I think we’re going in the wrong direction,” the NA speaker said, adding that Ayub had sought a “point of personal explanation” but he was not named by Asif in the first place.
NAB launched an inquiry into the scandal last year. The inquiry transitioned into an investigation on April 30, leading to Imran Khan’s sudden arrest at the Islamabad High Court premises on May 9.
