Sethi and his compatriot Maleeha Lodhi of The News, once Pakistan's ambassador in Washington, were a formidable combination, unsparing in their attacks on illiberalism, corruption and obscurantism but forthright in the defence of their country's foreign policy. Every time they had to mention the `K' word, they were careful not to offend the Indians. They saw a settlement of Kashmir as the key to abiding Indo-Pak friendship.

This is what makes Sethi's arrest and the Nawaz Sharif government's reported attemptto try him under martial law for his alleged links with the Indian intelligence agency, the Research and Analyses Wing, utterly baffling. Of course, it was his statement that Pakistan is a `failed state' made in the course of a commemorative lecture at the India International Centre that is said to have angered the establishment in Islamabad.

It is amazing that as well-established a fact as the failure of the concept of Pakistan as denoted by the breaking away of its eastern province in 1971 should find a strong votary of free press behind the bars in that country. It only testifies to the failure Sethi alluded to in his lecture.

Nonetheless it is to fall prey to the Pakistani propaganda to believe that he was arrested for this particular lecture and his alleged links with RAW.Whatever may have been the exact cause of his arrest, his remarks during the three days of the seminar that I attended with him made abundantly clear his views on the Sharif government.

Sethi seemed to have an obsession about theill-gotten money Pakistan's leaders have stashed away in foreign banks, even to the point of repeating the words "stashed away" over and over again. For that very reason he often referred to the stint he had in M.K. Junejo's caretaker regime when he was advisor, accountability and political affairs.

Sethi argued that if the huge unaccounted wealth "stashed away" could be brought back to the country, it could make a world of difference to cash-starved Pakistan. He gave details of the attempt he made to unlock the wealth, and recalled that the endeavour foundered on the rocks of the secrecy clause of most Western financial institutions. "Look at the irony, the Western countries give us aid but they turn a blind eye to most of the money being stashed away in their own banks by our corrupt leaders. They have a moral responsibility to help countries like Pakistan to bring back that money," said the tall and heavily-built editor, who che-wed his moustache when he did not puff at a cigarette.

Sethi wanted theThird World countries to raise their voice in unison against Western duplicity. Let there be no mistaking, it was this obsession that landed Sethi in trouble. As he himself confided, his attempts were a total failure as the cost involved in litigation in the West was huge and that too with no certainty of success. A self-confessed Internet buff who monitors the Indian press, Sethi was taken aback when he was told that a large section of the Indian press had criticised Pokharan II and some of its members had even formed a body, Journalists Against Nuclear Wea-pons. He proudly mentioned that a section of the Pakistani media had stoutly opposed the nuclear arms race in the subcontinent.

It was his belief in the freedom of the press in Pakistan that encouraged him to speak his mind, whether it was in the columns of The Friday Times or in a conference hall in Delhi. How mistaken he was!