ISLAMABAD: Lt General (R) Shahid Aziz, former Chief of General Staff, and once close buddy of General Musharraf, in his book, ‘Ye Khamoshi Kahan Tak?’ reveals, “Each one of you three will be authorised to issue orders for the toppling of the government. I hold you all three, General Mahmood, General Aziz and Shahid, you, responsible. General Musharraf directed us while concluding the meeting and explained, ‘I am saying this for the reason that if for any difficulty or other cause you could not contact each other there is no problem in the carrying out of coup,’ saying this Musharraf got up. “Perhaps General Musharraf said this to all three of us to ensure that even if anyone back tracks coup succeeds. We all said goodbye to General Musharraf and left for our homes. Before General Musharraf’s departure to Sri Lanka, it was our last meeting. The decision was that if during General Musharraf’s tour to Sri Lanka, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif removes him as Army chief then there would be an immediate toppling of the government by the Army. For several days there had been meetings on this issue at Musharraf’s official residence. In these meetings besides me, Lt General Mahmood, Commander 10 Corps; Lt General Aziz Khan, CGS; Major General Ehsan, DG MI; Brigadier Quraishi, DG ISPR, and Principal Staff officer to Army Chief used to be present.” The above quotes from General Aziz’s book establish the fact that General Musharraf had planned the October 12, 1999, military coup merely to secure his job. It is also a fact that he removed the elected government by exploiting the muscles of the Army without even consulting his corps commanders. Did he serve the army or hurt it? On November 3, 2007, dictator Musharraf suspended the Constitution to get the judges of the superior judiciary, including the Supreme Court of Pakistan, removed. He also put almost all of them, along with their families, under house arrest. This unique attack in the history of Pakistan on judiciary was again planned squarely by Musharraf to protect his re-election as president of Pakistan in uniform. A large bench of the Supreme Court was all set to hand down an adverse judgment against Musharraf in Justice (R) Wajihuddin petition, challenging dictator’s re-election in uniform. By doing all this did Musharraf serve the Army, the country or his own vested interest? REFERENCE: Musharraf: the pride or shame! BY Ansar Abbasi Friday, April 11, 2014 http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-2-243574-Musharraf-the-pride-or-shame!
How conveniently Jang Group and their Journalists forget that General Pervez Musharraf Imposed Emergency in 2007 in Pakistan with the consultation of the then Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Federal Cabinet and several member of that cabinet have now joined PML - N, PTI, PPP.
General Pervez Musharraf 3 November 2007 Emergency on PM Advice
General Pervez Musharraf 3 November 2007... by SalimJanMazari
Elections may be delayed for a year: Aziz Updated Nov 05, 2007 ISLAMABAD, Nov 4: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Sunday defended President Pervez Musharraf’s move to impose a state of emergency and said general elections could be put off for up to a year. Addressing a news conference, Mr Aziz acknowledged that 400 to 500 people had been rounded up. He was non-committal about how long the emergency would continue and just said that it would last for “as long as it was an utmost necessity”. However, Mr Aziz said a decision about rescheduling the elections would be taken after consultation with all stakeholders. Parliament was empowered, he said, to delay elections for a year under a state of emergency. The news conference in the Prime Minister’s House was held under the glaring lights of a host of television cameras, though the prime minister and his aides sitting with him were aware that barring the state-run Pakistan Television, none of the local or international news channels could be viewed in the country because of the government ban on private TV channels. Answering a question, Mr Aziz said the federal and provincial governments were working under the Provisional Constitutional Order, although the set-up remained parliamentary. Regarding rejection of the imposition of emergency by a bench of the Supreme Court, he claimed: “This ruling holds no significance as it came after the declaration of emergency and the judges on the bench had been removed from their office.” When asked if Gen Pervez Musharraf would doff his military uniform after taking oath as president for the next term, Mr Aziz said the matter was in the court. He insisted that no decision had been taken about the election date. The government remained committed to the democratic process, he said. Endorsing the views expressed by Gen Musharraf in his address to the nation, the prime minister said Pakistan was in a crisis caused by militant violence and a judiciary which had paralysed the government. He said the decision to proclaim emergency had been taken to “ensure the writ of the government, improve the law and order situation and maintain harmony among the judiciary, executive and legislature, so that the government could function smoothly”. He said the government wanted to be able to act effectively and protect the lives of people, which could not be done with ordinary laws. He said the security situation in the country and Afghanistan and the presence of foreign troops there had prompted the government to take extraordinary measures. Although the Constitution had been held in abeyance, all the activities would continue normally, he said. “The judiciary will function in the normal way. Army will not be called in any part of the country and only police and paramilitary forces will be used,” he said. Responding to a volley of questions about curbs on media, he said the government wanted an agreement on a code of conduct for setting parameters for the electronic media before allowing the blocked private television channels to resume their telecasts. REFERENCE: Elections may be delayed for a year: Aziz Updated Nov 05, 2007 12:00 am http://www.dawn.com/news/274430/elections-may-be-delayed-for-a-year-aziz Shaukat hints at extending NA term by one year by Asim Yasin Monday, November 05, 2007 http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=10997&Cat=13&dt=11/5/2007
I am a hero Comment by Ansar Abbasi Wednesday, April 23, 2014 ISLAMABAD: I am a hero, no matter what I do. No law, no Constitution, no institution, nothing matters to me because I am the national interest and whatever I say or do, I do in Pakistan’s interest, whether others agree or not. I can do Kargil without even informing the prime minister. For this if the prime minister dares to challenge me, I can remove him through a military coup because I am more important than anyone or anything else. The Constitution does not matter to me. I have the power to use the muscle of my organisation to do whatever I think is right. I can use the army, I can use the ISI, I can use any other organisation, including the NAB, police, etc, to make a political party of my own. I don’t bother if it is a violation of the Constitution and law or the misuse of the institutions but still I do it because it serves my interest and keep in mind my interest is the interest of Pakistan. I can take a U-turn on the Afghan issue on a single phone call. I can join the US war on terror and offer everything, including my armed forces, my air bases, my intelligence and whatever Washington demands. REFERENCE: I am a hero Comment by Ansar Abbasi Wednesday, April 23, 2014 http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-13-29879-I-am-a-hero
General (R) Shahid Aziz Praises General Pervez Musharraf on GEO TV.
General (R) Shahid Aziz Praises General Pervez... by SalimJanMazari
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ISLAMABAD: Former chief of the general staff Lt-Gen (retd) Shahid Aziz on Monday issued a statement in continuation of his interview with Ansar Abbasi of The News, published on Sunday. He said: "The US invasion of Afghanistan and our involvement in this war were very difficult events to handle. The U-turn after 9/11 was a complex and historic decision. There were great reservations within the Army with what we had to do, but it was understood that in the national interest we had to take the events into account and do what was to be done. Within such psychological dynamics, Gen Musharraf had to handle the nation as well as the armed forces, and pull us through the crisis. What pressures and compulsions he had to balance cannot be understood by those who have not been in that position. Those were unique times and had their unique compulsions. "There was no formal agreement undertaken by the Army for operations in Fata. If there was any such agreement at the government level, the GHQ was not aware of it. When decisions were made at the government level, departments concerned, including the Army, were informed of their part in the process. All that transpired between Washington and Islamabad on the war on terror was not shared with the Army, since the canvas at the national level was far wider than that of the Army. This does not imply that the Army as an institution was kept in the dark. Regular corps commanders' conferences were held in which the president talked at length on these important issues. "In my capacity as chief of the general staff, I was handling a selected sphere of issues related to the war on terror. I could only speak from my purview. The government had its own very wide perspective, and the ISI had its own mandate. To ask me if I was aware of the Pakistanis which were handed over by us to the US, I could only respond that the militant prisoners taken by the Army were handed over to the ISI for interrogation. Beyond that is not in my knowledge. "However, one thing is sure that it was Gen Musharraf's stated policy that no Pakistani would be handed over to the Americans. As for the foreigners, the policy was that they would be handed over to their respective countries. It was much later that one read of Pakistani prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, and yes we all felt very bad about it. "These were, most likely, those arrested from Afghanistan; however, if ISI was involved in their handing over, it was certainly in violation of the government policy. Gen Musharraf was quite emphatic about this policy of not handing over Pakistanis to any foreign country. In fact a team led by an Army colonel visited Guantanamo to find out if any Pakistanis were imprisoned there and to arrange for their release and return to their homes. Likewise, the cooperation with the CIA, through the ISI, did provide the Army useful information regarding the presence of foreigners in Fata. This was necessitated because of the superiority of their technical intelligence means, which also included drones flown over Fata for intelligence purposes. These were tactical matters coordinated at lower levels, and did not require presidential clearance. Despite our reservations, there was little we could do to prevent this. "The colour of the article, as it has appeared in the paper, is much different than what I had meant or even implied. Gen Musharraf has a great contribution in leading the nation through a critical juncture of our history, and we should thank him, at least, for buying us the additional time to make us strategically a far stronger nation than we were seven years ago. Those who are concerned with Pakistan's security will realise this and the fact that he refused to be pushed beyond a certain point under continuous US pressure on Pakistan "to do more". Ansar Abbasi adds: Since Lt-Gen (retd) Shahid Aziz has not denied the content of his interview and since he has reconfirmed most of its points, there will be no point in stating that The News and I stand by our report. References: Ex-CGS gives more facts about Army-US relations News Desk Tuesday, September 16, 2008 http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=136075&Cat=2&dt=9/16/2008 GHQ had strongly opposed handing over Pakistanis to US - Ex-CGS says Musharraf allowed US drones despite top commanders’ opposition by Ansar Abbasi Sunday, September 14, 2008 http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=17248&Cat=13&dt=9/14/2008
General Hamid Gul supported Pervez Musharraf on 12 Oct 1999 (BBC)
General Hamid Gul supported Pervez Musharraf on... by SalimJanMazari
Hamid Gul, a retired general, accuses Mr Sharif of having presided over an administration which had failed to deliver the goods.
"Sharif turned out to be a great destroyer of national institutions," he told the BBC. "Look at what he did to the judiciary.
"He stripped them of power, put a set of judges against the chief justice, did the same to the press. "He gagged the parliament and finally he wanted to do the same to the army." REFERENCE: World: South Asia Pakistan's coup: Why the army acted
Wednesday, October 13, 1999 Published at 23:20 GMT 00:20 UK http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/473297.stm
During the 2007 Emergency Rule which was imposed by the Pervez Musharraf Government , a senior Journalist of the Jang Group , Mr Kamran Khan was like this and please do read the stories given below the footage he filed during the democratic and elected government of Mr Nawaz Sharif.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz with Kamran Khan... by SalimJanMazari
Central Punjab holds 41 key posts - Disparity may deepen deprivation in smaller provinces - News Intelligence Unit By Kamran Khan The NEWS International, Karachi December 17, 1997 KARACHI: Less than four dozen individuals from Central Punjab, who had either lived or served in Lahore in the past 15 years, are currently holding the country's 41 most important official assignments -- a situation that is bound to aggravate the prevailing sense of deprivation not only in the three smaller provinces but also in Southern Punjab, according to an investigation by the News Intelligence Unit (NIU). The situation took a delicate turn late on Monday night when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif stunned the federal cabinet by announcing that he had decided to nominate the former Supreme Court judge and a known Sharif family friend, Mr Justice (retd) Rafiq Ahmed Tarar, as the president of Pakistan. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took the decision to appoint a Central Punjabi president against strong recommendations from his cabinet members, parliamentary party members and even his younger brother, Shahbaz Sharif, urging him to pick a presidential candidate from smaller provinces, the sources said. The NIU investigation found that before Senator Tarar's nomination as the president, at least 41 individuals -- mostly with permanent residences in Lahore -- were holding almost all of the, what an independent observer labelled as, "make-or-break appointments" in the country. The NIU study showed that though all of these appointments were not made by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, but under his nine-month-old administration the domination and influence of Central Punjabis over the government departments multiplied manifold. With the election of Justice Rafiq Tarar as the president of Pakistan by the end of this month, the country would have a Lahore-based president, prime minister and chairman Senate. Although Justice Tarar hails from Wazirabad near Lahore, he has lived most of his life in Lahore and is believed to be a personal friend and constitutional and legal adviser to the Sharif family. Both Nawaz Sharif and Wasim Sajjad have lived their personal and professional lives in Lahore, where their families are permanently settled. Seniority, merit and professionalism may have been the criterion, but the fact remains that all three present services chiefs incidentally have Central Punjab background. The present Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Fasih Bukhari, and Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal P Q Mehdi had been appointed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, while Chief of Army Staff General Jehangir Karamat was selected by President Farooq Ahmed Leghari. The present government handed dual charge of Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee to Gen Karamat. When Nawaz assumed the charge of the prime minister in February this year, each and every member of his personal team at the Prime Minister's Office had a Central Punjab, particularly Lahore, background. He appointed seasoned civil servant and a scion of a known Lahore family, A K Z Sherdil, as his principal secretary. Because of his Lahore background, Sherdil was personally known to Saifur Rahman Khan, who had initially suggested his name to the prime minister. Even before Sherdil's appointment, Nawaz had decided to appoint another former civil servant, Anwer Zahid, as his special assistant. The Lahore-based Anwer Zahid was the principal secretary to the prime minister during Nawaz's first tenure. Closest in Nawaz Sharif's personal team at the Prime Minister's Secretariat was, and still is, Saifur Rahman Khan -- the chief of Ehtesab Cell. Saifur Rahman like Sherdil and Anwer Zahid, cherished his Lahore background. "The prime minister feels very comfortable with Sherdil, Zahid and Saif. They speak his mind and the language," noted an informed official. The prime minister not only favoured the individuals with Lahore background for top positions of his office, he invited the people with similar background even for mid-level posts in his personal setup. He appointed Rauf Chaudhry and Khayyam Qaiser as his personal staff officers and Qamaruzzaman as his personal secretary. These three personal staff members, like other senior aides in the Prime Minister's Office, have strong Central Punjab background. They not only manage the prime minister's days and weeks, but also serve as his eyes and ears. REFERENCE:Central Punjab holds 41 key posts - Disparity may deepen deprivation in smaller provinces - News Intelligence Unit By Kamran Khan The NEWS International, Karachi December 17, 1997 http://www.karachipage.com/news/punjab_rules.htm
General Pervez Musharraf with Kamran Khan - 1... by SalimJanMazari
Similarly, his Press Secretary Siddiqul Farooq has always lived and worked in Lahore and Central Punjab with no work experience in smaller provinces. The prime minister appointed another old Lahore hand and a former Ittefaq Group employee, Major General Sikander Hayat, as chief of the Prime Minister's Monitoring and Evaluation Cell. He appointed Colonel (retd) Mushtaq Taher Kheli, an individual of similar background, as his political secretary. With the accountability placed at the top of his priority list, Nawaz Sharif decided to operate through his most-trusted Lahore aides. While Senator Saifur Rahman was placed at the driving seat, Nawaz decided to continue with Justice (retd) Ghulam Mujaddid Mirza, another famous Lahorite, as the chief Ehtesab commissioner. He appointed another Central Punjab PML leader Mumtaz Ahmed Tarrar as the chief of Ehtesab Council. Not surprisingly, officials and politicians wanted or arrested in corruption cases from Punjab escaped the net laid by the much-dreaded Ehtesab Cell, while those arrested from Sindh faced a totally different situation. For instance, under extremely intriguing condition a corruption case registered against former RECP chairman Kabir Sheikh, a Lahore-based official, was hurriedly withdrawn. Under identical circumstances, the corruption charges against former petroleum secretary Capt Naseer Ahmed had been withdrawn.
While appointing the federal cabinet, Nawaz Sharif, once more, preferred his trusted Lahore and Central Punjab associates for important cabinet assignments such as commerce. Senior official sources conceded in their background interviews that because of his extreme closeness with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Ishaq Dar's influence reaches frequently the decision-making levels in the Ministry of Finance. Because of his Lahore and Model Town connections, Ishaq Dar has emerged as the prime minister's most trusted aide in the federal cabinet. Dar's closeness with the prime minister can be gauged by the fact that it was he and Saifur Rahman who had negotiated and finalised the power-sharing agreement with the MQM. No PML member from Sindh was included in the team that had negotiated with the MQM after the change of government in February this year. Other Central Punjab PML parliamentarians who received important cabinet slots included Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan (Petroleum), Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain (Interior), Mushahid Hussain (Information), Shaikh Rashid Ahmed (Labour and Culture), Begum Abida Hussain (Population Welfare), Raja Nadir Pervaiz (Water and Power), and Khalid Anwar (Law). Surprisingly, the entire national security team that is reporting to the prime minister on important security matters also has the similar Central Punjab background.
The present director generals of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) shared this common background. Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed and Major General (retd) Enayat Niazi had been appointed as the IB director general and the FIA director general, respectively by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, while Lt Gen Nasim Rana had been appointed as the ISI director general by the Benazir Bhutto government. Smaller provinces were completely ignored over Central Punjab when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif decided to appoint members of his party as heads of various government and public sector organisations. He appointed 37-year-old Shahid Khaqqan Abbasi, MNA from Murree, as the PIAC chairman and picked Khawaja Asif to head the Privatisation Commission. Similarly, Humayun Akhter Khan, the MNA from his home town Lahore, was appointed as the chief of Board of Investment (BoI). When it came to the appointment of the attorney general of Pakistan, the prime minister once again preferred a candidate from Lahore. Sources said that before his appointment as the Attorney General, Chaudhry Muhammad Farooq had long served the Sharif family in their business and family matters.
While selecting the team of bureaucrats for his government, the prime minister apparently decided not to disturb the officials with Lahore or Central Punjab background, notwithstanding the fact that they had been appointed by President Farooq Leghari during the caretaker set-up. In a policy decision, the prime minister decided to continue with Dr Muhammad Yaqub as the governor of State Bank of Pakistan, absolving him of his responsibility in the collapse of banking and DFI sector in Pakistan in the past four years. Similarly, he also decided to continue with Chaudhry Moeen Afzal as the secretary of finance and Hafizullah Ishaq as the chairman Board of Revenue -- both gentlemen had a Central Punjab background. The prime minister also appeared comfortable with Afzal Kahut as the establishment secretary and Mian Tayyab Hussain as the cabinet secretary.
The Central Punjab criteria apparently played a significant role as he appointed secretaries to some of the important ministries, for example he selected Mian Iqbal Fareed as the secretary commerce, Mehar Jivan Khan as the interior secretary and Gulfaraz Ahmed as the secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum. The Central Punjab may not exactly be the reason behind the appointment of Lt Gen (retd) Chaudhry Iftikhar Ali Khan as the secretary defence, but it may be the first time that no one from a smaller province is attached to any significant position in the entire Ministry of Defence. Like in Justice (retd) Rafiq Tarar's case, most observers do not dispute the fact that many of the Central Punjab bureaucrats or politicians given important tasks in the government by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif enjoy good reputation, but they do not believe that the smaller provinces cannot offer individuals with similar reputation and competence. These observers felt that to give a truly national look to his government, particularly after the election of Justice Tarrar as the president, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif would have to go an extra-mile to neutralise the impression of his being the Central Punjab government. REFERENCE: Central Punjab holds 41 key posts - Disparity may deepen deprivation in smaller provinces - News Intelligence Unit By Kamran Khan The NEWS International, Karachi December 17, 1997 http://www.karachipage.com/news/punjab_rules.htm
General Pervez Musharraf with Kamran Khan - 2... by SalimJanMazari
Ambitious Ziauddin steered Nawaz to political disaster News Intelligence Unit By Kamran Khan / An Open Letter to Gen. Pervaiz Musharaff October 14, 1999 ISLAMABAD: Within half an hour of his surreptitious climb to the post of the Chief of Army Staff on Tuesday afternoon, the former Inter-Services Intelligence chief, General Khawaja Ziauddin knew that the Army he was supposed to lead was not prepared to accept his command. The News Intelligence Unit (NIU) has gathered that all of Ziauddin`s phone calls to the Corps Commanders and the Chief of General Staff -- placed from the Prime Minister`s House in Islamabad on Tuesday -- drew a blank, a reaction that almost instantly drew down the curtains on former prime minister Nawaz Sharif`s second term in office. Debriefing sessions with detained aides of the Nawaz Sharif administration by security officials here have disclosed that the former ISI chief-led operation to stage an in-house coup in the Army was driven by his personal ambitions ignoring the actual situation on the ground.
``Even a layman in Pakistan is aware that any operation of this sort can never be completed without the active support of the troops and commanders posted in the cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi,`` an Army official commented. ``It was foolish of the former prime minister not to be aware that his nominee for the Army chief didn`t have the key support of the 10 Corps and more specifically the 111 brigade,`` he added.
It has now become clear that Lt. Gen. Ziauddin was the architect of the secret operation that envisioned the official announcement of his promotion to the post of COAS once Gen Pervez Musharraf boarded PIA Flight PK 805 in Colombo for a journey that severed his contact with the GHQ for a good 200 minutes. It was also Lt. Gen. Ziauddin who, along with the former principal secretary Saeed Mehdi, had suggested to Nawaz Sharif that General Pervez Musharraf`s plane must not be allowed to land at Karachi so that he could be arrested at any other less busy airports in Sindh.
Sources said that Ziauddin had assured Sharif that he would gain the full command of the Army much before the landing of General Pervez Musharraf`s plane at Karachi airport, a dream that suddenly transformed itself into Sharif and Ziauddin`s worst nightmare. Officials here believe that because of his family and, more particularly, his father`s old ties with Khawaja Ziauddin`s family, Sharif always wanted to appoint him to the coveted post of the COAS, but he couldn`t do that since he had ignored a senior-most three star general as General Jehangir Karamat`s replacement. Several close aides to Sharif had often conceded in the past that Gen Kuli Khan Khattak was ignored because Sharif was not comfortable with a Pathan general.
Ziauddin, an officer from the Army`s Corps of Engineers, was one course junior to Gen. Ali Kuli Khan and Gen. Pervez Musharraf at the Pakistan Military Academy, but even before Karamat`s dramatic exit from the Army, Ziauddin had told his friends about the likelihood of his replacing Gen. Jehangir Karamat. Sources said that General Karamat had posted him as the Corps Commander, Gujranwala in response to a personal request from Sharif, who wanted to give him a fair chance at the time of Karamat`s retirement. Those who had close access to Sharif always contended that his decision to appoint Gen Musharraf was a stopgap arrangement between Gen. Karamat`s abrupt resignation and Ziauddin`s eventual appointment as the COAS. Ziauddin`s appointment as the ISI chief, minutes after Musharraf`s posting as the COAS, spoke volumes of Sharif`s bent of mind at the time.
With the knowledge that doubts deliberately created about Musharraf`s tenure as the COAS would further deteriorate worsening relations between the Army and the former prime minister, Ziauddin using his position as the ISI chief nonetheless invented an intriguing conspiracy theory on the Kargil crisis and helped fuel misinformation that the Army leadership got Sharif trapped by launching the Kargil operation. During the Kargil crisis, Gen. Ziauddin`s exclusive briefing to the former prime minister almost always contradicted the GHQ`s version. ``He was responsible for planting the seeds of intrigue on the Kargil issue in Sharif`s mind,`` according to a reliable official source.
In his rash drive to convince Sharif that Musharraf`s removal as the COAS would ease tension with the Army, Ziauddin is believed to have also encouraged the former Intelligence Bureau chief Colonel (retd) Iqbal Niazi, to invent a variety of Army-backed threatening scenarios for Sharif, who apparently had an unlimited appetite for stories that painted a highly negative picture of Musharraf and the corps commanders considered close to the COAS. Khawaja Ziauddin`s desperation to please Nawaz Sharif became evident on the first day of his appointment as the ISI chief when he readily confirmed a police-doctored version about the culprits allegedly involved in the ghastly murder of Hakim Mohammad Said.
On Ziauddin`s report, submitted without any independent verification, Sharif got an excuse to knock out the democratic set-up in Sindh, an act that later emerged as part of a well-engineered plot to make way for the installation of an exclusive PML-run unelected administration in Sindh. An independent Army probe later discovered that the Sindh Police`s version of the Hakim Said case, with a stamp of ISI confirmation from Gen. Ziauddin, was nothing but ``a pack of lies.`` Neither Sharif nor Ziauddin, however, ever acknowledged the blunder. In another desperate attempt to please the former prime minister, Ziauddin ordered the illegal detention of Najam Sethi, the editor Friday Times, for more than two weeks. Despite the Army`s blunt refusal to initiate sedition or treason charges against Sethi, Ziauddin obliged Sharif and Saifur Rahman by keeping Sethi locked up for about 20 days.
Sethi had been handed to Ziauddin`s ISI after being abducted by IB goons from his Lahore residence. Sources said Ziauddin agreed to hold Sethi in illegal detention in response to a single phone call from Saifur Rahman, who later also made Sharif speak to him on the subject. Reliable sources said that Ziauddin was also behind severe criticism of the Kargil crisis by at least two corps commanders, who later met Sharif in Ziauddin`s presence. These meetings were never reported to the COAS, who later reacted by removing both corps commanders from their posts. For Sharif, sources said, Ziauddin`s mission was to divide the corps commanders on ethnic and professional lines and to create an anti-Musharraf lobby amongst the corps commanders.
``Since his appointment as the DG ISI, Ziauddin was playing a dangerous game that pitched his boss against the Army,`` observed a senior official. ``His operation ultimately turned out to be hara kari (suicide).`` REFERENCE: Ambitious Ziauddin steered Nawaz to political disaster News Intelligence Unit By Kamran Khan / An Open Letter to Gen. Pervaiz Musharaff Mueen Batlay and Rahal Saeed October 14, 1999 http://www.chowk.com/interacts/4646/1/0/104#95665
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