Illustration by Aan Abbas
There were rumours in the air. During the
126-day-long dharna by Pakistan
Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) against the ruling Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz
(PMLN), there were murmurs of a coup d’état. Other than General Shuja Pasha,
the former intelligence officer who is known to be a close friend and supporter
of PTI Chairman Imran Khan, the other name that was repeatedly brought up was
that of Zaheerul Islam, the then director general of the Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI). Allegedly, the two were conspiring to create a rift between
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif. In
the past, the premier had acted against generals whom he had differences with.
It was expected that he would again act in a similar manner, under the
presumption that the dharna had the general’s backing. But the events did not
play out as expected. Not exactly.
It was Federal Defence Minister Khawaja Asif who
first stated that the two were behind the political unrest that prevailed last
year. Specifically, the minister said, Islam had a “personal grievance” with
the ruling party for siding with a particular media house. Asif was
subsequently sidelined and snubbed at a dinner with army generals and quickly
made to learn a central lesson.
Not everyone took from his experience. In an
interview with the BBC in August 2015, Senator Mushahidullah Khan claimed that
an audio tape obtained by the Intelligence Bureau was played during a meeting
between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Raheel Sharif last year, in which Islam
could be heard giving instructions to raid the prime minister’s
office. According to the senator, when questioned by General Raheel
Sharif, Islam confirmed that the voice was his own.
Khan later clarified that he himself had not
heard the tape. Never mind the fact that he kept referring to the ex-ISI Chief
as Zahirul Islam Abbasi – the major general who had plotted to overthrow the
Benazir Bhutto government in 1995, and who died six years ago – the damage had
been done.
Appointed on the recommendation of then President
Asif Ali Zardari in March 2012, Islam became the 18th director general of the
ISI. He has remained mostly out of the spotlight and yet, he manages to cast a
shadow over many major events in the last few years. The most significant of
them was when a private television channel ran photographs of Islam alongside
allegations by journalist Hamid Mir’s brother stating that firing on the
prime-time anchorperson was the handiwork of the intelligence agencies.
Islam has a strong military background; his
father, brothers and brother-in-law had also served in the army. His uncle,
Shah Nawaz, was a major general in the Indian National Army, led by Subhas
Chandra Bose, and was captured and detained by the British briefly in the early
1940s.
Islam belonged to the Punjab Regiment, he was in
charge of a division in Murree before being promoted to lieutenant general and
being posted as Corps Commander Karachi.
He was mentioned in Forbes magazine’s
most powerful people list as the “new head of Pakistan’s notorious intelligence
service” in 2012. “The ISI has played both sides in the war on terror and, as
US troops draw out of Afghanistan, will be hugely influential in determining
the region’s future,” the magazine went on to state. He succeeded Pasha, who
had had the embarrassing distinction of being the ISI chief when Osama bin
Laden was killed by US forces in Abbottabad.
With the reputation of being an ‘honest’ officer
and a close aide of General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, it was expected that Islam
would continue Kayani’s policy of minimal interference in political matters.
That seems to not have happened. And as recent events suggest, he may have been
out of office but still holds a lot of say on the political development —
albeit by default and alleged association. Quite like most of his career in the
intelligence, he has refused to come out of the shadows to clarify his
position. Or shall we wait until the Official Secrets Act no longer applies to
him?
No comments:
Post a Comment