ISLAMABAD: The over six hour drama that played out on Monday, 23 June, involving the flight of Dr Tahirul Qadri as he landed from London in Islamabad, and was forced to take a detour to Lahore while scores of his supporters clashed with police forces, and Dr. Qadri himself refused to disembark either in Islamabad or in Lahore placing a series of conditions, bargaining for a negotiated exit with back-up in the form of a Pakistan Army escort to guarantee his safety, represents a series of events that have now become commonplace in Pakistans political history.
It must have conjured up a sense of dejavu for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif himself who has been in similar situations more than once. In fact aeroplanes have played a critical political role in the history of Pakistan.
Documenting the curious role of the aeroplane in charting the course of Pakistans history over the years, Dawn reports that Dr Qadri is not the first political figure to have refused to disembark from an aircraft without seeking some guarantees. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and former president Asif Ali Zardari had also had to negotiate with the administration from inside their planes when they landed in Pakistan during the tenure of Gen. Pervez Musharraf. The retired general himself had taken over the government in a bloodless military coup after a plane hijacking drama in 1999.
The latest scenes at the Islamabad and Lahore airports refreshed the memories of the people who had witnessed similar events six years ago when (Retd.) Gen. Musharraf forcibly deported Nawaz Sharif to Saudi Arabia when he tried to return to Pakistan from London and end his seven-year exile.
The Musharraf regime had argued that the Sharif brothers should not return to the country because they had gone to Saudi Arabia under an agreement that they would stay away from politics for 10 years.
However, Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif declared that they would return to the country, come what may, after the Supreme Court ruled on Aug 23, 2007, that they were free to return to Pakistan.
On Sept 10, 2007, Nawaz Sharif left London on a PIA flight with a team of journalists and some PML-N members, only to be deported again to Saudi Arabia on a special plane.
And two days before his planned return to the country, Lebanese politician Saad Hariri and Saudi intelligence chief Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz had come to Islamabad to take him back to Saudi Arabia in the special plane, hours after landing at Islamabad airport.
Sharif later returned to Pakistan on Nov 25, a month after then PPP chief Benazir Bhutto landed at Karachi airport after ending her self- imposed exile.
In April 2005, former president Zardari was taken into custody from inside his aircraft when he landed at Lahore airport to lead the PPP in the absence of his wife Benazir Bhutto.
The PPP workers were not allowed to receive Zardari at the airport and even the journalists who accompanied the leader from Dubai were manhandled by security personnel.
The plane crash of former president and army chief Gen Zia-ul Haq in August 1988 in Bahawalpur and the denial of permission to land the aircraft carrying former president Musharraf in Karachi were the two main events that changed the political landscape of Pakistan definitively.
It was after the death of Gen Zia in the mysterious military plane crash that the country saw a real democratic transformation and four elections were held within nine years – from 1988 to 1997.
On Oct 12, 1999 then prime minister Nawaz Sharif removed Gen. Musharraf from the post of Chief of Army Staff when he was on his way back to Karachi from Colombo, where he had gone to attend the Sri Lankan armys 50th anniversary celebrations.
PIAs commercial plane carrying Gen. Musharraf was denied landing permission at the Karachi airport. The plane remained in the air till the time military commanders on the ground toppled the government and arrested Sharif, who later faced a trial on charges of hijacking.
During the last days of Gen. Musharrafs rule after the 2008 elections, there were rumours that a special plane was parked at the Islamabad airport to take him abroad. He denied the presence of any such plane, but later left the country after resigning as president in the wake of a no-confidence motion against him and started living in self-exile in the UK.
Just two months before the general elections in May last year, Mr Musharraf returned to Karachi to take part in the polls from the platform of his newly-formed All Pakistan Muslim League.
On April 1, Gen Musharraf departed for Islamabad from Karachi in a chartered plane. This time again, his plane was diverted to Lahore, but only because of bad weather.
Earlier, in March 1981, a Peshawar-bound flight from Karachi carrying 135 passengers and nine crew members was hijacked and taken first to Kabul and then to Damascus (Syria).
An organisation named Al Zulfikar, headed by Murtaza Bhutto, son of late prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, claimed responsibility for the hijacking.
The 13-day hijacking ended when the military ruler Gen. Zia agreed to release some political prisoners.
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