Strange Charges

Did cricket hero Imran Khan bomb his own hospital to get maximum publicity for his political career? The Pakistani police certainly believe so.

 Ever since Imran Khan hinted that he wanted to enter politics, Premier Benazir Bhutto had been keeping a wary eye on Imran's hometown, Lahore. For her, Khan was clearly a political time bomb, waiting to explode.

But the bomb that forced her to rush to Lahore last week had nothing metaphorical about it. The political repercussions, though, could be precisely what she had been fearing. For, the target was the recently-completed Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer hospital in Lahore, Khan's pet project built in memory of his mother. The explosion ripped through the out-patient department, killing seven people and injuring 34. And it occurred just a day after Khan's announcement on April 13 that he was launching his own political party.

A report in London's Daily Mail on April 18 saying the Pakistani police had begun a gruelling cross-examination of Khan, working on the theory that he himself was responsible for the blast, only fuelled the controversy further. Their suspicions are said to have aroused because Imran originally planned to be at the hospital on the day of the blast, but cancelled the visit. Khan says the visit was called off at the request of a team of businessmen he was due to meet at the hospital. "Investigating officers thought I might have done it make myself more popular. One of them actually asked me if that was the case," Imran said.

Though the torrent of foam and water used to put out the blaze destroyed most of the evidence, investigators feel the bomb, with a timer, had been planted under a sofa near the doctors' chambers.

 Benazir was quick to initiate damage control measures and lost no time in visiting the injured in hospital and promising them financial assistance. She announced that the government would help re-build the damaged ward, stressing that she had no differences with Imran Khan. The explosion, she said, was engineered by elements seeking to "weaken" Pakistan, and her government would spare no effort to find and punish the culprits. President Farooq Ahmed Leghari and other leaders too condemned the attack.

Khan, however, did not receive Benazir at the hospital, although he personally welcomed the opposition leader and head of the Pakistan Muslim League, Nawaz Sharif, who arrived the next day. Talking to Sharif, Imran expressed his resentment at the visit by Benazir Bhutto, describing it as a clever move to "score points".

 The blast has turned the international spotlight on Khan at a time when he needed it. Princess Diana, who visited the hospital in February to help Khan's fund raising efforts, telephoned him from London to express her support and extended her sympathy to the injured.

Describing the attack as an attempt to scare him, Khan vowed to press ahead with his plan to launch a reformist political movement to fight for the rights of the poor. For the past year, Imran had been denying persistent rumours about his political ambitions. But at the same time, he regularly launched scathing attacks on the government, particularly after the administration denied him the tax benefits he had been seeking for the hospital and had banned any coverage of his project on national television. 

"I think a time will come when we will have few choices," he was quoted as saying some weeks ago. "It's coming very fast. People's awareness of corruption is growing fast. So is the resentment at their suffering. The combination will lead to a movement. It may reach a state where there are two options: get a green card and emigrate or stay here and fight." Khan is no stranger to controversy, particularly after his marriage last year to Jemima Goldsmith, daughter of British tycoon James Goldsmith. But he has made many enemies with his scathing attacks on Pakistani politicians of all hues.

Earlier, there were rumours that Nawaz Sharif's PML(N) was one of Khan's political suitors. But then, for the past two years, Khan has been trying to enlist the support of Islamic fundamentalists on the one hand, and the liberal intelligentsia, who believe in strengthening democratic system, on the other. As a result, both camps have lost faith in him as a potential leader. Now, Khan no longer wants to be identified either with the fundamentalist Lt Gen Hamid Gul, former ISI chief and now a politician, or with Pasban, a semi-independent organisation formed by people who essentially belong to the rightwing Jamaat-i-Islami but work outside the party framework.

Instead, Khan offers a third option to voters disillusioned with Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the main opposition PML(N). According to him, Benazir as well as Nawaz Sharif have "disappointed voters" who are tired of the corruption rampant in high places.

The government dismisses Khan's potential as a political threat. "He is a celebrity and so he attracts attention, but when that translates into hard politics it means nothing," Sheikh Rafiq Ahmed, veteran politician and PPP secretary-general, told Outlook. "Politics in Pakistan is a nasty, slow, dangerous grind. He does not understand these realities of politics."

WHILE admitting he has a lot to learn, sources close to Khan say he has prepared a good wicket for his political career. He has gathered together like-minded people who have managed to organise his nascent ideas to prepare a political agenda. But he seems to be in no hurry. The first step involves launching a movement which focuses on providing the people with "justice", which he claims they have been denied so far. The nationwide movement will be non-agitational and organised at the cadre level with new faces, since he doesn't want "people with blotted pasts and those aiming at power", says a source close to Khan. And their aim will be to "change the system".

 "Pakistan does not need me in this political system. In this system, I will not be able to do anything. If I joined, it would only be for power and money, to live in a prime ministerial palace which is an affront to democracy. I would much rather be part of a movement of reform. "

Imran Khan will have to do much more than just talk. Unlike Benazir and a large number of Pakistani politicians, he does not have a feudal background. Unlike Sharif, he is not an industrialist. Those who know him, however, say he is very feudal in his attitude. He may not like Benazir Bhutto, but she has shown tremendous resilience in surviving in Pakistani politics. Will Khan have the same resilience, is the question being asked.

Khan's manifesto, which is yet to be released, proposes a radical and progressive programme. Moderate Islam, democ-racy, rights of women, social justice, decentralisation of power, an economy that stresses on neglected social sectors and the total enforcement of land laws. He also feels Pakistan should be friendly towards its neighbouring nations, especially India. "The defence budget can be reduced by mutual understanding between India and Pakistan," he suggests. However, he adds, "if you increase your national production and improve the budgetary position, you can easily afford the defence spending instead of cutting it." This provoked Salman Taseer, a PPP leader, to retort that "if he (Imran Khan) could tell me the GDP of Pakistan, I would jump through the window."

 But Khan's advisers suggest that the launch of his party, tentatively named the Pakistan Justice Movement, may not necessarily mean he will contest the 1998 elections. He would prefer to build a strong base first, test the waters, and build his innings gradually. Analysts concede that there is space for a new force in the present political scenario. They also say that if Khan does decide to contest, Nawaz Sharif is likely to be affected much more than Benazir. The damage will be more severe if Nawaz Sharif and Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the Jamaat-i-Islami chief, fail to strike up an alliance. And cashing in on this will be the PPP, thus defeating Khan's very purpose.

But the bombing in Pakistan's second largest city also adds law and order to the list of worries for Benazir, whose 30-month-old administration appeared to have contained terrorism and ethnic violence in Karachi. Commenting on the bomb blast, Pakistani daily The News said that the "reprehensible" attack targeted "nothing but humaneness and goodness," which has "again brought to the fore" the threat of bomb blasts.

Sarfraz Nawaz, test cricketer-turned-PPP leader and a virulent critic of Khan (his one-time bowling partner), has described the blast as an "Imran ploy to earn cheap publicity". Others speculate that it could be the act of someone who wanted to pitch Khan against Benazir but got tired of Imran's vacillation. According to this theory, the blast would cut short the delay in Khan jumping into political waters.

 The timing of the blast couldn't have been more inappropriate. It occurred when people were wondering what steps Khan's opponents would take to check him.

Khan, however, has done himself great harm by slapping a reporter from a local news agency who asked him whether the explosion could be due to a blast in an air-conditioner duct. There are contradictory reports on what caused the explosion, but its political reverberations will continue to be heard for a long time.