1999 arrest

In early 1999, Sethi gave an interview to a team for the BBC television show Correspondent, which was planning to report on corruption in the Nawaz Sharif government.^[11] At the beginning of May, he was warned by contacts that his co-operation with the team was being interpreted by the Nawaz Sharif government as an attempt to destabilize it and that officials were planning Sethi's arrest.^[11] On 8 May, he was taken from his home by personnel of Punjab Police.^[12] According to Sethi's wife Mohsin, at least eight armed officers broke into the house, assaulting the family's security guards; when asked to produce a warrant, one of them threatened simply to shoot Sethi on the spot. Mohsin was tied up and left locked in another room.^[11]

Sethi was then held for almost a month without charge. He was kept incommunicado at a detention center in Lahore.^[13] Amnesty International stated its belief that his arrest was connected with his investigations into government corruption, and designated him a prisoner of conscience.^[14] The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists also sent a protest letter to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, noting the organisation's dismay "that the state continues its persecution of independent journalists",^[13] and World Bank president James Wolfensohn called Sharif to urge Sethi's release.

On 1 June, authorities charged Sethi with "Condemnation of the Creation of the State and Advocacy of Abolition of its Sovereignty" and "Promoting Enmity Between Different Groups" and transferred him to police custody. However, the following day, the Supreme Court of Pakistan ruled that the government had provided insufficient evidence to justify Sethi's detention. He was released, and the charges against him were dropped.^[13]

My Feudal Lord

In June 1991, Mohsin and Sethi's publishing company, Vanguard Books, released Tehmina Durrani's My Feudal Lord, a "politically explosive" book about her marriage with leading politician Mustafa Khar. In the book, Durrani alleges that Khar mistreated and abused her. It was an "instant sensation" and later became the "hottest book in Pakistan's history". Durrani signed a contract vesting foreign rights with Mohsin and giving her 50% of foreign royalties.^[15]

On 19 May 1999, however—during Sethi's one-month incommunicado detention—Durrani called a press conference to denounce him as having stolen all of her earnings from the book, stating that his actions were "an even bigger case of hypocrisy than my experience with the feudal system". Durrani sued Sethi for mental torture, and he countersued for defamation. An earlier dispute over the foreign rights had been settled out of court in 1992. A review of the contracts by the UK newspaper The Independent described Sethi as acting in good faith and described him and Mohsin as "the injured party".^[15]

In 2008, when Sethi's newspapers ran a series of editorials opposing religious fundamentalism, the Taliban threatened him with death, causing him to live under constant guard.^[16][17] Sethi also received death threats in July 2008 for publishing an editorial cartoon showing Umme Hassaan, principal of a girls' school, encouraging young women in burqas to "kidnap Chinese masseuses". The joke referred to Lal Masjid, the fundamentalist Masjid at which her husband Abdul Aziz Ghazi was a cleric; the mosque had kidnapped six Chinese women that it accused of being prostitutes, leading to Ghazi's arrest.^[18][19]

Caretaker Chief Minister of Punjab

Najam Sethi was appointed as the caretaker Chief Minister of Punjab on 26 March 2013, for the 2013 Pakistani general election, which were scheduled to be held on 11 May 2013. His name was presented by the opposition, PPP, and the governing party, PML(N) agreed on it. He was then chosen to be the caretaker Chief Minister.^[20][21][22] On 6 June 2013, he was replaced by the newly elected leader Shehbaz Sharif.^[23] PTI, the party that lost the 2013 elections, had accused Najam Sethi of fixing the elections in 35 constituencies and famously called them the 35 punctures.^[24]

Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board