Within minutes of a Pakistani court denying him bail, former military dictator Pervez Musharraf shoved past police outside the court, got into his black armoured vehicle and immediately made his way to Muridke, a Lahore suburb where the LeT is headquartered, to become a card carrying member of the dreaded terrorist outfit.
Hafiz Saeed confirmed the news to reporters and asked the police to back off now that Musharraf has become ‘one of us’. Musharraf has been told to stick around Saeed as he goes around spewing venom against India. Pakistani authorities admit that now it will be difficult to convict Musharraf since, in light of his new status as a gun-toting Lashkar terrorist, the evidentiary standards to withstand judicial scrutiny in Pakistani courts would be impossible to meet. Musharraf says he is now planning another incursion into Kargil, this time as a lowly LeT foot-soldier, a far cry from his heady days as the chief of the world’s sixth largest military force.
If he manages to get past Indian border security forces, the former SSG commando will hitch a ride to New Delhi where he is banking on getting red carpet treatment: lunch at Hyderabad House with India’s External Affairs Minister, keynote speeches at leadership summits, and lionization by the beholden and scatterbrained Indian media. “Who knows, I might even get a ticket to contest the Lok Sabha elections but mustn’t let my thoughts get too ahead of myself,” he mused while speaking to The Unreal Times over phone from his plush Mediterranean-style villa in Chak Shahzad, a plush suburb of Islamabad.
But given the difficulty of sneaking into India across the LoC, Musharraf also has a plan B up his sleeve: flying to Bangladesh and then seamlessly sneaking into India. “My advisers tell me that’s the easiest way to assimilate into Indian society. Ration card and Voter Id have already been taken care off. I only need to stand in queue for Aadhar card but even that, I believe, can now be done from Dhaka,” he pensively observed.
But what if his plans to sneak into India fail? “Well, then my only option will be to have Justice Katju write a letter to Pakistan’s Chief Justice seeking a pardon for me,” he trailed off.