LAHORE: A video featuring former chief justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Chaudhry and his son Arsalan Chaudhry was widely shared on social media on Wednesday. The video showed Arsalan arguing with a passenger who demanded that they head to the back of the line as people queued up to board a plane to London at the Jeddah airport in Saudi Arabia. Reported as a ‘humiliating experience’ for the former chief justice by local media, it seems the argument happened due to a misunderstanding about the priority boarding privilege usually accorded to business class passengers. Arsalan can be seen telling the unidentified passenger that they’ve been told to move ahead to board the plane first as business class travellers, but the passenger keeps arguing that they should not cut ahead. “Talk to those at the counter but don’t push in the queue. We have been waiting,” the passenger is heard saying. Before matters escalate, however, the former justice intervenes to diffuse the situation, saying, “It doesn’t matter” and moving out of the camera frame, presumably to the back of the line. The incident has become a talking point because it seems to contradict the persona the former chief justice projected of himself. In his eight years as chief justice of Pakistan, Chaudhry had developed a reputation for lecturing extensively on public morality and issuing stern warnings to errant government officials. He was also regarded as being on a one-man mission to rid the country of its social, economic and political ills.
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