Selective Accountability |
Pakistan does not suffer from a shortage of scandals. It suffers from a shortage of consistency.
The latest allegations surrounding Dr Fazeela Abbasi have once again exposed that fault line. According to investigators, around Rs25 billion moved through 22 bank accounts linked to her, with funds allegedly routed to Dubai and the United States and possible use of informal channels such as hawala and hundi. What makes the case more jarring is the gap between declared income-reported in the range of a few hundred thousand rupees annually-and financial activity running into billions.
These are not minor irregularities. They are questions that go to the heart of financial credibility.
Yet what stands out is not just the scale of the allegations. It is the silence that has followed.
Because this is not just any household. This is a household tied to one of the loudest moral campaigns in Pakistan’s recent political history. Hamza Ali Abbasi was not merely an entertainer who flirted with politics. He was part of the ideological machinery that helped build a narrative of moral superiority-one that painted opponents as corrupt, compromised, and beyond redemption. His affiliation with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf was not incidental; he served as its cultural secretary and one of its most visible public advocates.
That history matters.
Because today, when allegations of staggering financial movement emerge from within his immediate circle, the tone has shifted dramatically. There is no moral thunder. No televised outrage. No sweeping declarations about “looted wealth” or “national betrayal.” There is, instead, a carefully worded distancing.
Abbasi has stated that he is not under investigation and has no connection to the case. Legally, that distinction is valid. Politically, it is insufficient. One cannot spend years claiming custodianship of accountability and then retreat into technicalities when questions arrive at one’s own doorstep.
That is not principle. That is convenience.
The deeper discomfort lies in the numbers. A system in which an individual declaring modest annual income is allegedly linked to transactions worth Rs25 billion is not just facing a compliance issue. It is facing a credibility crisis. Either the allegations are wrong-in which case they must be disproven transparently-or they point to something far larger than one individual: a financial architecture that has learned to operate in the shadows.
And that is where the case becomes bigger than a surname.
The same pattern is now brushing up against the media industry. Reports linking a senior official of HUM Network Limited to a separate money-laundering probe have already unsettled a sector that thrives on projecting moral clarity on screen. The company has categorically denied any involvement, calling the allegations baseless and misleading, and has announced an internal fact-finding committee to review the matter.
That response is expected. It is also not enough.
Because the problem is not just whether a company is legally culpable. The problem is perception. When a media house that builds narratives of justice and accountability becomes entangled-even indirectly-in financial scrutiny, the contradiction is unavoidable. The screen sells virtue; the system behind it is now under question.
This is not about HUM alone. It is about a broader ecosystem where politics, celebrity, and media have blurred into a single influence network-loud in judgment, selective in introspection.
For years, Pakistan’s political discourse has been shaped by a simple formula: accuse loudly, defend quietly. It worked because outrage was never meant to be consistent; it was meant to be useful.
Now that formula is collapsing under its own weight.
The public is no longer just watching the allegation. It is watching the reaction. It is noticing who speaks, who falls silent, and who suddenly discovers the virtues of due process only when the spotlight shifts.
And that is where the real damage lies.
Because accountability, once reduced to a political weapon, loses its moral force. It becomes performative-deployed against opponents, withheld from allies, and diluted by selective outrage. In such a system, every new case is filtered not through evidence, but through affiliation.
That is how credibility dies.
For the ordinary Pakistani-already squeezed by inflation, taxation, and economic anxiety-the spectacle is painfully familiar. When the accused are “others,” the language is absolute. When the names are familiar, the tone becomes cautious, the memory selective, and the outrage negotiable.
The courts will determine guilt or innocence. They must.
But the political verdict is already forming.
It is not about one case, one family, or one media house.
It is about a question that Pakistan has avoided for too long:
Is accountability a standard-or just a slogan that expires at the doorstep?
The writer is a freelance columnist