The Centaurus Affair

How a tiff between the PMs of Pakistan and AJK is linked to shopping mall in Islamabad

Islamabad: The day-long sealing of Islamabad’s largest shopping plaza, the Centaurus Mall, early last week is yet another example of how Pakistan’s fractured political landscape can succumb to conflicting interpretations by rival groups out to run each other down.

The Capital Development Authority (CDA), which ordered the sealing of the plaza, said in an order sheet that the premises were being “sealed on account of non-conforming use”. But others linked it to a verbal tiff between Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, and the Prime Minister of Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK), Sardar Tanvir Ilyas Khan, at an official ceremony in AJK’s Mangla region a day earlier.

Prime Minister Mian Shehbaz Sharif was in Mangla on 5 December to inaugurate a refurbishment project of the Mangla Dam Hydroelectric Power Plant, and was addressing the inauguration ceremony when the tiff took place.

According to reports and videos available on social media, towards the end of Mr Sharif’s address, Tanvir Ilyas, who sitting among the audience, tried to intervene, asking him if he had anything to say about the sacrifices of the Kashmiri people.

Mr Sharif tried to stop him, asking him to let him finish his speech and then they can talk about it later. But Mr Ilyas insisted, creating a scandalous situation. As a result, after winding up his address, Mr Sharif left the premises without meeting Mr Ilyas.

Why did this happen, why did the CDA seal the Centaurus Mall later the same day at around midnight hour, and why was all of this subsequently discussed so profusely by top political leaders on social media as well as in their official statements?

The answer is simple. Tanvir Ilyas is allied with Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, which was ousted from power in a trust vote earlier this year. He is also the owner of Centaurus Mall. Shehbaz Sharif represents the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), and replaced Imran Khan as the prime minister.

So, was Tanvir Ilyas’s intervention into the prime minister’s address a part of the ongoing war of narratives between the PTI and the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) alliance of which PML-N is a part? And was the sealing of the Centaurus Mall a revengeful act by Mr Sharif’s government to teach Mr Ilyas a lesson?

Reactions from both the PTI and the PDM circles underscore the state of political polarization which exists in today’s Pakistan.

When Centaurus Mall was sealed, traders based there and some PTI leaders held a protest, calling it an act of political revenge. A statement by the All-Pakistan Anjuman-e-Tajiran (APAT) termed the sealing “an act of revenge”. It said, “livelihoods of several traders are associated with Centaurus Mall and its closure will deprive several employees of their jobs.”

The CDA insisted, however, that parts of the mall were being used in violation of the rules governing commercial activities in such buildings. It said that the sealing was the result of several notices issued to the building owners, including the one on 2 December, in which sealing orders were issued.

Significantly, the verbal tiff between Mr Sharif and Mr Ilyas happened on 5 December.

At a press conference after the tiff, Tanvir Ilyas said that he was trying to ask Prime Minister Sharif as to whether he had anything to say about the “sacrifices of the Kashmiri people”, but that the prime minister left the venue without meeting him. He said ignoring Kashmiri sacrifices in his speech amounted to “insulting the Kashmiri people”.

Imran Khan commented on the issue in a tweet, saying that sealing of Centaurus Mall by the “PDM mafia in response to PM AJK censuring SS (Shahbaz Sharif)” showed that Pakistan had slid into the “law of jungle… since the last 8 months.”

PDM’s information minister, Maryam Aurangzeb, while responding to Imran Kha n on twitter, called him “shameless, ignorant, incompetent” and the “seller of Kashmir”.

PML-N leader and special assistant to prime minister, Atta Tarar, during a press conference termed Tanvir Ilyas’s “antics” while the prime minister was speaking were part of his efforts to pressurize the prime minister into signing no-objection certificates for his commercial housing projects in Islamabad. He said the Centaurus Mall had been issued at least two notices for compliance with building use regulations during the time when Imran Khan was the prime minister. Two more notices over violations and failure to conduct building inspection were issued to the mall following Mr Khan’s ouster from power. The mall was de-sealed after a day’s closure.