What to do on May 9th?

According to fiery announcements issued by PTI leaders and from Adiala Jail, today, August 5, is the day to beat the drums of war, the movement is about to begin, which has been named "Not Us or Neither of You."

Such “final calls” were given earlier too, but the eyes of those with a taste for spectacle were not satisfied with Ghalib’s pieces. The last battle was fought on Jinnah Avenue in Islamabad in November 2024. The cold evening descended from the Margalla Hills, the night was about to fall when the festival was broken up. The leader of the revolution, under the umbrella of a security agency, sat in a car and went to Peshawar.

To erase the shame, the narrative of “Why did you fire?” was created. There was a cry of hundreds of bodies falling. When the names of the bodies were asked, the kings of narrative making started looking at each other’s faces. The impression was given that the “holy souls” of the “Pakbaz martyrs”, while flying to the heights of the sky, took their own bodies with them.

Even after not allowing even a drop of blood to remain on any road, PTI is now approaching thirty years old, having been surrounded by a dictator at the very beginning of its journey, having spent years wandering the desert in search of power, benefiting from the establishment's pottery workshop, enjoying the pleasures of absolute power for four and a half years, and then suddenly becoming a street vendor while receiving a wave of harsh punishments, Imran Khan has not been able to understand what ingredients make up the yeast of politics?

What are the requirements of democratic values? What is understanding and comprehension? What is the name of the scourge of ground realities? And when disaster strikes, how is the path found through the dense forest? From April 2022 to today, PTI has become a whirlwind in the desert. There is only one reason, the founder's temper and bitter temper. The rest of the PTI has become a directionless planet in this faceless orbit.

These days, the verdicts of the May 9, 2023 cases have started coming. The turn of the verdicts of these cases, which have been stalled for two and a half years, came after the Supreme Court's order issued on April 8 that the May 9 cases should be disposed of within four months. This period is also about to end after three days, but many cases are still awaiting a decision. According to the decisions so far, dozens of PTI leaders and members of parliament have been sentenced.

None of the convicted people is named Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, so his case should start from the Supreme Court and end in the Supreme Court, no appeal, no lawyer, no argument. Perhaps his crime was more heinous than the rebellion and rebellion of May 9 that he did not take salary from his son's company while he was an employee of it, but the sentences given to the accused of May 9 are not the last word.

Griha Ministerial is in its place, this series will continue, appeals will go to the High Courts, if necessary, they will reach the Supreme Court, if still not satisfied, review appeals will be filed, but PTI, using its traditional craftsmanship, has limited the ‘punishments’ to government coercion and judicial injustice, so the entire discussion on newspapers and TV channels has been reduced to this narrative of ‘oppression and injustice.’

No one is bothering to look back and see that May 9th was also on our calendar, the day when more than 250 defense installations were systematically attacked, when the monuments of martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the protection and defense of the Holy Land were looted, when Pakistan Air Force planes parked at airports were set on fire, was this devastation from Quetta to Chakdara cantonment the miraculous art of some invisible creature that it dissolved in the blink of an eye?

If this was a conspiracy by living corrupt people, should they be released without any inquiry, any legal process, and any punishment? From August 1947 to August 2025, during the 78 years, there were many movements, many political protests, many riots, but can any Pakistani, placing his hand on his heart, point to any act of vandalism like May 9, 2023? Absolutely not.

Because no incident remotely related to May 9th has been 'told'. Solid evidence indicates that this was a conspiracy to foment a coup, the target of which was Army Chief Syed Asim Munir. By overthrowing the military leader, installing someone in his uniform in this position, regaining control of the government, and turning Islamabad into the Delhi of the post-1857 War of Independence, where crosses are erected at every square and the bodies of political rivals hanging in nooses are heralding a new revolution.

The plan was that if flames would rise from hundreds of military installations across Pakistan that were the target of riots, the army would fire in anger, hundreds of men and women would be shot. A large-scale earthquake would occur within the army, large towers would collapse to the ground, and the springs in the hull of the ship of desire would start to spring lightly.

The mature leadership of the army realized the conspiracy in time. It did not fall into the trap of the rebels, no bodies fell, no rivers of blood flowed on the streets, and no cracks could be made in the strict discipline of the army. The conspiracy withered away without a trace, the rebellion failed miserably. History shows that if a rebellion succeeds, it makes its targets, opponents and opponents a lesson.

If it fails, it becomes a model for lesson by becoming the target of merciless reproach and revenge. In recent history, there is a precedent for this in Turkey when in July 2016, the Fethullah Gulen movement, some elements of the army, police and bureaucracy, and revolutionary intellectuals conspired to overthrow Tayyip Erdogan. At Tayyip Erdogan's appeal, the people took to the streets and the coup failed. The doomsday that broke out on the rebels and conspirators immediately after that is a horrific story of lesson.

I cannot say whether all the requirements of the law were met in the recent sentences or not. I do not even have the power to say whether the convicted were involved in this conspiracy or not. But I know this much that there was a dark day in my history, May 9, 2023. I saw some characters in action on TV channels that day. I also know how many people's hearts were touched by this atrocity. Punishing an innocent person is not a source of joy for me, but I also do not want the body of May 9, which has been lying in a cold storage for 2 and a half years, to be declared abandoned and buried in an unknown corner of a distant cemetery.