Army chief and DG ISI face to face…

Well, the former Director General Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is going to let the cat out of the bag.

Former Chief of Army Staff General (Retd) Mirza Aslam Baig couldn’t possibly have expected his former spymaster Maj. Gen. Asad Durrani to have spoken out against him in the Supreme Court.

In his recent statement, the latter clarified that the ISI distributed funds over the orders of the then military chief to make an anti-PPP alliance.

Earlier, Aslam Baig had submitted his detailed statement to the apex court saying he hadn’t been aware of any such plane to formulate anti-PPP alliance. However, Gen. Durrani’s rejoinder, where he all but rubbished his former boss’s statement, made clear that the then army chief had originally given him the task.

The petition filed by Air Marshal (Retd) Asghar Khan, which took more than a decade and a half to be taken up seriously by the apex court, has put up a wedge between the old boys’ group. Should we expect a greater set of disclosures as the uproar grows?

It will also be easy to ascertain what current role of the ISI is once the past of the shadowy institution becomes clearer and clearer.

The Intelligence Bureau (IB) provides the civilian government with intelligence while the Military Intelligence (MI) takes care of matters related to forces. The million dollar question is that why there is another intelligence agency in the country.

These three intelligence institutions misinterpret their roles, even when they are not meddling in politics and staying within their legitimate limits.

Such institutions are only mean to collect intelligence, simply. They should present solid evidence to the police if they manage to get the dirt on someone, who should then apply criminal codes.

Interfering in the democratic process is simply the next step on the timeline once they forget their concise. An impression is being given by apologists that the episode in question is but a dark one in the agency’s history.

The courts should move on beyond punishing the guilty party in the Asghar Khan’s petition and holding the current operations of the national intelligence setup accountable.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=22684

Posted by Faisal Farooq on May 18 2012. Filed under Opinion, Pakistan, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.