Well, if this is actually they case, then the two obvious questions are "Who?" and "Why?".
Could it be the pro taliban extremist group that is opposing Akhund's arrest and the recent shift in Pakistan's afghan policy favouring Hekmatyar?
Or is it the more over ground opposition, the likes of Bhutto and Nawaz's political parties?
Or could it be the U.S. lobby pulling strings to pressurize Musharraf?
Three candidates I could think of. The first one seems most likely to me (personally!).
These are very educated an civilized people in the mix of all the trouble. Not your usual run of the mill Mullah. The arrests of Qazi Hussain and all the other big bearded ones no one cares about. But the attack on the protesting lawyers, the Chief Justice, Geo freakin news! These are institutions that religious parties or organizations don't have much control over. They are very small players compared to BB and NS.
BB is strangely very silent. She gave ONE statement that too when all three exiles came on air one by one, starting with Altaf's theatrics, then the usual hypocrisy by Nawaz Sharif (who btw stormed the Supreme court using thugs and really doesn't even deny it) and then much later it was BB.
BB's PPPP is still the largest political party in Pakistan, even bigger than PML-Q.
BUT, she can't pull off something like this. The Punjab police, which has no jurisdiction to conduct operations in the capital (federal territory) cannot go ahead on orders from her and storm a new network in Isloo and then not even do anything like stop transmission, just act like thugs and break windows and furniture and lathi charge reporters and then come out and chant slogans "Punjab police, Zindabad" (wtf?)... If the DSP hadn't come on TV and tried to defend his police's actions I would be half convinced they were thugs in police clothes!
America? Punjab police is dirt cheap to buy. On the streets they accept bribes of 50 rupees man. Now someone with enough balls to take on Musharraf has done this, is my take. They want him out. Pakistan recently (yesterday, day before) gave its final rejection to the US on supporting it in an attack against Iran. The writing on the wall is clear, Musharraf is no longer playing to US tunes.
I'm so sad about all this.
Musharraf today also announced that elections would be held this year (as opposed to jan 2008). Rift with PML-Q? The whole reason Musharraf took on CJ is on the insistence of PML-Q, which has its stronghold in Punjab. The entire Punjab police hiring scandal was orchestrated with Chowdhary Pervez Elahi, who is hiring sifarishi officers. The Chief Justice was predicted to gave an unfavorable sentence in the case of 45 members of PML-Q elected officials who hold fake degrees and are in power.
So what these government officials did was for the past several months they kept giving the CJ son, undue favors. Promotions, new trainings, bonuses, etc. Now when they had enough dirt on his son, they made up a story that the CJ used his position to get him all that. I mean hey Isay even if he did, big freakin deal. A little waasta isn't much of a crime, you know. But it was an excuse to get rid of him. Shaukat Aziz suggested requested to remove the CJ on a presidential order whereas it should've gone through the Judicial comittee. Since Judiciary is technically above the President of Pakistan as well. The crime was not so severe that it warranted a Presidential order.
Musharraf really has to be an idiot to think this would play in his favor... I think he's been played and by people very close to him... Starting with Probably either Shujaat Hussain and PML-Q or Shaukat Aziz too.
