Harking back: Fateful misty morning when ZAB was sentenced

It is rare in the life of a journalist that after being the only one present nearby when a crime takes place, and then by sheer chance also to be the only one present when the ‘accused’ were sentenced to death. So it was in the case when ZA Bhutto was sentenced to death.

It so happened that on the night of the 11th of November, 1974, as a young crime reporter of ‘The Pakistan Times’, I was passing on Jail Road on my motorcycle. In the distance a lot of shooting could be heard. My instinct told me that this needs to be checked. When I reached the Shadman Crossing there was silence in the dark. I saw the police rushing in. The assassination of Nawab Muhammad Ahmed Khan Kasuri had taken place.

The SHO of Ichara Police Station soon arrived and from the crime scene he recovered bullet cases. As he knew me well he told me: “No one in Pakistan has these Chinese bullets except for the Federal Security Force.” This was a serious matter, which I wrote in my story. In the morning the sub-editor had deleted this description of the bullets and any mention of the FSF.

Again as fate would have it very early on the morning of the 18th of March, 1978, the telephone rang. It was Simon Henderson of the BBC from Islamabad. I was the Beeb man in Lahore. “Majid, rush to the Lahore High Court, they are going to sentence Bhutto to death.”

Now that I think of it just how did he know what the court order was going to be? That got me flying out of bed much to the annoyance of my wife. In a thin cotton ‘kurta’, crumpled jeans and in my favourite Peshawari ‘chappal’, I virtually flew towards the courts. It was fairly misty, rather unusual for that time of the year. The motorcycle throttle was at its maximum.

The roads were empty. No one had a clue just what a monumental day that was going to be. As I neared the courts I noticed a senior police officer, a Mr Asghar who I knew as a crime reporter, standing outside the chief justice’s court.

As I moved towards the court, Asghar stopped me. Not a single other journalist, or person, or even court officials, were to be seen, not even on the road outside. The court door opened and out came Mr. ZA Bhutto accompanied by four police men and two court officials. He looked slightly perplexed. They walked towards a waiting police jeep. On seeing me Mr Bhutto nodded with a shy smile and then moved on. There was silence and mist all around. No one had a clue as to what had transpired.

As soon as the jeep left and disappeared into the mist, I rushed towards the court clerk. He knew me and immediately blurted: “Sazay-e-maut Bhutto sahib ko”.

That confirmed what Simon had told me. He showed me the court order from which I hurriedly made notes. My next destination was the old Telegraph Office opposite the High Court, where I rushed in a state of calm excitement. Journalists live for such moments.

The old Mr. D’Souza was at his post. “Aray Sheikh Sahib, kuch aur London kay laye”. He was an expert at the old Morse Code telegraph messaging. I wrote out a four paragraph story standing there and passed it on to Mr. D’Souza, who read it. There was an alarm on his face. I asked him to calm down.

Though D’Souza did the job in record time, but to me it seemed like a lifetime. Once having sent my message I used Mr D’Souza’s office phone to ring Simon. He got the essential details and thanked me for the story. What next I thought. As I left the Mall Road office everything was calm. Very few were on the road and those present passed by busy in their own world. What next? I rushed to my newspaper office on Rattan Chand Road. The outer gate was closed for journalists start late.

I opened the door and rushed to the reporters room and rang our Chief Reporter Syed Amjad Hussain. On hearing my voice he said: “If it’s Majid Sheikh it’s trouble. Now what?” I told him the story and he said: “You type out your story and do not speak to anyone or show it to anyone. I am coming.”

The 7.00am BBC World Service broadcast led with my story and byline. Very soon journalists were rushing about. Everyone wanted to know details. I was silent and said read everything when the ‘Special Edition’ appears. By nine in the morning the ‘Special Edition’ was out as more and more colleagues came rushing in. The lead said ‘World Exclusive’: Bhutto sentenced to death. Then my story led the front page. What better in the life of a reporter!

The second lead was again my story with the headline: “Bhutto: A broken man walks in silence”. At about ten in the morning walked the office PPP journalists’ brigade and threatened to thrash me for the headline ‘a broken man walks in silence’. “No one can break Bhutto Sahib”, shouted the muscular cartoonist and artist Mahmood Butt, an old family friend, crying and rushing to throw a chair at me. I ducked and within a few seconds was on my small motorcycle racing away from the office.

Once home I rang Simon who wanted more details … and ‘colour’ as he said … for his main story. At home a neighbour rushed in to tell me people in a jeep were looking for me. I rushed out and disappeared in the thin winding lanes of Canal Park Gulberg, emerging at a dear friend’s house in FCC Colony. He was, as expected, fast asleep. From there I went back to work in the evening. The Editor was alarmed at just where I had been.

As I recollect that story, my mind goes back to the fact that it was the last time I saw Z.A. Bhutto alive. He was a good friend of my late father and every time in Lahore he stayed at the Falettis’ Hotel and always rang to inform of his arrival. When I joined journalism he was always very kind, taking me aside to drop a hint for an exclusive story. When I was refused an NOC to go on a four-month Thomson Foundation course in the UK on ‘senior editorial techniques’, our Islamabad bureau chief informed him. Within exactly 30 minutes, the DG Information came to hand over that critical letter.

But the best was when I duped the ISI to talk to Kashmiri hijackers of an Indian aircraft managing to steal all the photographs they had used me to take, at the risk on my life, for transmission, so they told me, to ZAB himself. Being a reporter has unique dangers, which only an exclusive story amply compensates. The next day ‘The Pakistan Times’ carried all those photographs. Another exclusive. That same morning the ISI picked me up and threw me into an interrogation chair. Before they could wallop me it was ZA Bhutto who ordered my release.

Almost a week later while on the customary Lahore Airport beat, Mr Bhutto saw me in the journalists’ line. He walked up to me and said: “Great scoop. Good work. The clumsy intelligence chaps choose the wrong man”. He hugged me and said: “True son of your father”. So when on that fateful 18th of March 1978 morning the great man walked out of that court, he was gracious enough to nod towards a young journalist he knew well. I am sure he knew deep down that I would tell it as I saw it. But then when a world exclusive story is your fortune to tell, one forgets all loyalties. The story comes first.

Many years later during a long session with Benazir Bhutto in the house of Begum Viqar-un-Nisa Noon on the Lahore Canal, I told her this story. She had tears and said: “The deep State invariably has tunnel vision. All one can do is to try to make the system more and more accountable”. Even she, like her father, paid for such beliefs.