IMPORTANT NOTE: This article was written when the
sit-ins were at their peak but wasn’t published because there were no serious
evidence behind the analogy drawn in this article yet this notorious character’s
presence on Imran Khan’s stage on 28th of October was quite an
evidence that he is very much a part of this grand conspiracy against democracy
and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on behalf of former dictator Pervaiz Musharraf
and his cronies within the armed ranks.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE: In a recent interview, Javed
Hashmi, one of the most respected politicians of Pakistan and President
Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI – Pakistan Movement for Justice) revealed that
PTI Chairman Imran Khan was leading the long march against Nawaz Sharif led
Pakistan government on the directions of some people in the Pakistani
establishment. He said that the plan was to bring hundreds of thousands of
people to the capital Islamabad and force Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to resign
but because Imran Khan failed to bring enough people to Islamabad, the plan
failed. He revealed that Dr. Tahirul Qadri was tasked by the very same forces
to attack the Prime Minister House and Parliament House but he was also unable
to fulfill the task because of the Police.
However, the biggest revelation that he made during the
interview was that Imran Khan’s press conference held on August 11, 2014, was
actually prepared by Brigadier (r) Ejaz Shah, the former Director General
Intelligence Bureau (DG IB) and a close aide to the former military dictator
Pervez Musharraf. Before we dig further into the matter, there are some
important things that must be mentioned in their sequential order.
Pervez Musharraf staged a military coup on October 12, 1999,
ousting PM Nawaz Sharif who was elected by an overwhelming majority in 1997.
Ruling for 8 years over Pakistan, Musharraf finally resigned from his post on
August 18, 2008 when Pakistan Muslim League, the party of dictator’s
hand-picked politicians, lost the election to Pakistan People’s Party and the
Nawaz Sharif led faction of Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N). On July 30, 2009,
Pervez Musharraf was declared a dictator and a ‘traitor’ by the Supreme Court
of Pakistan. Pervez Musharraf left Pakistan later and returned just before the
2013 elections. He wanted to take part in the elections but the papers were
rejected by the Election Commission of Pakistan as he was already convicted by
the Supreme Court. After the elections when Nawaz Sharif came into power, his
government invoked proceedings against Pervez Musharraf, on the directions of
the Supreme Court, under the Article 6 of the constitution seeking hi-treason
for him.
We all know how strong military establishment of Pakistan is
and how it can maneuver the political structure of the country. Pervez
Musharraf was their former chief, it was not easy for certain elements within
the Army to let go of their former chief so easily. Now that Javed Hashmi has
revealed the plan (it must be probed before being considered as the ultimate
truth), we must try to connect the dots.
Brigadier (r) Ejaz Shah has remained an extremely
controversial figure throughout his career. He was DG IB when former Prime
Minister Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan in 2007. Welcomed with an
assassination attempt in Karachi, Benazir
Bhutto mentioned Ejaz Shah’s name in her dying declaration saying that Ejaz
Shah among others (Former Chief Minister Punjab Pervez Elahi, Former Chief
Minister Sindh Arbab Ghulam Rahim and Ex-DG ISI General (r) Hameed Gull) may
attempt to murder her.
Earlier, when the American journalist Daniel Pearl was
murdered ruthlessly in Karachi, Ejaz Shah was the Home Secretary Punjab. Al-Qaeda
operative Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh had handed himself over to none other than
Ejaz Shah at that time and revealed during the police investigations that Danny
had been murdered.
Same Ejaz Shah was termed as “Musharraf’s terrorist handler”
by Indian newspaper, The Indian National Interest. When the gang-rape victim
Mukhtaran Mai received threats for exposing the rapists, she also named Ejaz
Shah. She said that Shah personally
traveled to Lahore to warn Mukhtaran.
Brigadier Ejaz Shah was also named by former DG ISI GeneralZiauddin for having kept Osama Bin Laden in that Abbotabad compound, according
to a Bruce Riedel article in Newsweek magazine. Though Ziauddin later retracted
from his statement saying that he had only said that Ejaz Shah should have
known about Osama’s presence in that compound, it doesn’t vindicate Ejaz Shah
from the charge because after all he was the DG IB at that time.
As cricketer-turn-politician Imran Khan and religious cleric
Tahirul Qadri led a long march comprising of around 10,000 people from entire
Pakistan towards the capital city of Islamabad, there were serious concerns
being echoed in the media and political circles of the country. While some
opined it was a revolt against democracy, there were others who believed it to
be a conspiracy against the very state of Pakistan. Though these marches
started from Lahore, the capital of the country’s most populous province
Punjab, on August 14, it is pertinent to mention that some of the most
respectable journalists of Pakistan warned the people about these marches much
before they were even announced.
On November 20, 2013, Hamid
Mir hosted a program in which he said that in 2014 there will be a long march
against the government to save the former military dictator Pervez Musharraf.
He made it clear that the protesters will propagate that they want reforms in
the system but the real agenda would be to save Pervez Musharraf. This program
was aired on Geo News some seven months before Imran Khan announced his long
march.
On December 12, 2013, senior columnist Haroon Rasheed, who
was considered to be Imran Khan’s close aide a few months back, wrote in his
column that Imran
Khan was planning to overthrow the government in 2014 with the help of Dr.
Tahirul Qadri and Sheikh Rasheed.
Dr. Tahirul Qadri has said it repeatedly that the Parliament
of Pakistan has failed to deliver and the democratic system has not worked well
at all. He has said it on various occasions that he believes Pakistan Army as
the only credible institution in the country. On September 1, 2014, his
followers broke into Pakistan Tele-Vision building in Islamabad. The mob also
tried to attack Prime Minister House but failed to take over it. Interestingly,
Pakistan Army, which was tasked to safeguard all the government buildings by
the country in wake of these threats, did nothing to safeguard them. None of
the protesters was arrested. They were rather requested by the Army to vacate
PTV building. And surprisingly, the protesters were generous enough to oblige.
Most people were shocked at the spectacle. Pakistan’s premier English newspaper
Dawn
wrote a hard-hitting editorial against Pakistan Army’s role in this entire
fiasco.
With a character like Ejaz Shah included in this matter,
nothing can be written off. His friendship with Pervez Musharraf, his
involvement in odd activities in the past and his connection with the terrorist
networks should never be undermined. At the same time, his alleged involvement
in Benazir Bhutto’s murder case makes the case even more confusing as we all
know that derailing democracy in the country has always been Pakistan’s
establishment’s favorite game.
Now when Javed Hashmi has revealed that Imran Khan’s press
conference was actually prepared by Ejaz Shah, it gives strength to the
questions that have been raised by certain quarters of the media.
Could this march really be a threat to democracy? Could it
actually be a conspiracy to weaken the state of Pakistan? We must also ponder
upon the fact that all this started only when Pakistan Army started an
operation against the terrorists in the badlands of North Waziristan Agency. Imran
Khan has always been termed by his opponents as ‘Taliban Khan’ for his
insistence on negotiating with Taliban despite the loss of more than 60,000
innocent Pakistanis’ lives. As mentioned above, The Indian National Interest
had once called Ejaz Shah as Musharraf’s terrorist handler. Given Imran Khan’s
love for Taliban, Javed Hashmi’s revelations and Tahirul Qadri’s notorious
involvement in all this case, could it be that Ejaz Shah was the missing link
that may allow us to connect all the disintegrated pieces of this jigsaw?
