While it is good that the petition will be finally heard, I have doubts about its outcome.
JUBAIL, SAUDI ARABIA: Retired Air Marshal Asghar Khan, now 91 years old, should feel pleased that his 15-year-old petition is finally going to be heard by the Supreme Court. Filed in 1996, the petition asked the apex court to look into the allegation that in 1990 the ISI distributed millions of taxpayers rupees to right-wing politicians, including Nawaz Sharif, to cobble an alliance against the PPP.
Though today most of the recipients deny receiving anything, the then army chief and the DG ISI never denied this allegation. Instead, they justified it and said that they had acted on the instructions of the then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan.
This petition covers two important groups: politicians who play in the hands of intelligence agencies for petty benefits, and the agencies themselves who play the role of king-makers — in the name of ‘national interest’.
While it is good that the petition will be finally heard, I have doubts about its outcome.
Masood Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, January 30th, 2012.
