Articles of the year 2020

The Punjab CM is to be congratulated for finally arresting the motorway rapist who has evaded capture for almost a month.

During this period, CM Punjab Buzdar came under scathing criticism. His mentor Imran Khan was also vilified and calls for his resignation were being raised continuously.

After the arrest the silence is deafening. Not a peep from anyone, the news is relegated to the back pages. They are swiftly downplaying this arrest to promote the anti-Imran agenda.

On the face of it, once the rapist had gone to ground it was almost impossible to catch him in a province of 120 million people —most of them pro-Nawaz and anti Imran.

The media continuously accused Buzdar and his IG of incompetence in their failure to nab the suspects. This was the recurring theme which was promoted by the TV anchors on all the channels.

Not surprisingly, there has been no reaction after the announcement of the arrest. The PML-N machine has gone strangely silent.

The same province did nothing to prosecute the child porn ring when it was unearthed on the pointation of the German police. No arrests and no prosecution had taken place. Rana Sanaullah was the minister of law through that period, there were rumours of high-profile PML-N politicians in the cover up giving the Punjabi politicians a significant rise in the sleaze factor.

The same Rana Sanaullah was allegedly arrested and 19 kilos of heroin was recovered from the car he was travelling in with his family. That case has disappeared from prosecution?

Especially when the anti narcotics chief made the charges public amid much fanfare, this officer has the highest success rate in recent times.

However, it seems that the PML-N cloak of invincibility is more powerful than this officer’s record and Rana Sanaullah walks free.

From such a murky background, it is all the more remarkable that the Punjab police have succeeded in arresting the motorway rapist in only 30 days. The silence of the media cannot be understood.