The scandal has grown since allegations surfaced that Javed Iqbal’s accuser was kept at the Prime Minister’s House for 45 days against her will.
By Naveed Naqvi
ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Water Resources Syed Khursheed Shah is the latest of Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) politicians to react in strong terms to the alleged dishonorable behavior of former senior justice Javed Iqbal, but the coalition government is yet to signal in any way it intends to take legal action over the matter.
But the scandal got worse by an order of magnitude the other day when a victim in her detailed testimony claimed she was kept incommunicado and against her will, at the Prime Minister’s House for a month and a half – clearly implicating former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his principal secretary Azam Khan.
Maintaining it stood proven Khan crossed all boundaries to teach a lesson to his political opponents, Shah said the former prime minister had no right to participate in politics and that he should immediately resign from his party leadership.
Damning allegations of women harassment against Javed Iqbal first surfaced back when he was the Chairman of the feared National Accountability Bureau (NAB). The allegations first surfaced when he was still in office, but were brushed under the carpet by the then government of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
Lately, Amna Masud Janjua of Defense of Human Rights (DHR) has corroborated those allegations by spilling the beans about how the notorious former judge passed lewd remarks about a woman who had approached her in connection with her husband going missing.
Janjua and Tayyaba Gul, the women who first accused Javed Iqbal of harassment, have since recounted their allegations against the former judge before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly, with the latter expanding her account with several additional details, each more damning than the other.
Gul says she first met Justice (R) Javed Iqbal in the Missing Persons Commission in connection with the disappearance of a relative. “My number was listed on the Application of the Missing Person, [and Javed Iqbal took to phoning] me from time to time. When I forbade him, he got angry”.
That was when she and her husband Farooq were ordered arrested by the NAB chairman. Gul says she was stripped naked at the behest of DG NAB Lahore Saleem Shehzad after the NAB arrested her from her house at night from Lahore in January 2019.
“I was arrested by male officers”, she said. “I can’t tell you the brutality that happened to me on the way in the car, I was taken to Lahore without transit remand. When I was taken to Saleem Shehzad, my clothes were torn, and [there were] bruises on my body. During the search, my clothes were taken off at the request of DG NAB Lahore Saleem Shehzad.”
Tayyaba Gul said Javed Iqbal’s personal staff officer at the Missing Persons Commission Rashid Wani was his facilitator in such matters.
“Javed Iqbal used to say I can destroy your life in a minute”, she told the committee. “If I find out that you have filed a complaint against me, your pieces will go to Jhang.”
Khurshid Shah said that Imran Khan should first face a clear and transparent investigation.
“State is like a mother [and] it is a disgrace for the entire state to make the Prime Minister’s House a harassment center for the daughters of the nation”, he said. “Imran Khan, you have been involved in such a heinous game”.
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