The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain denied that he ever took money from the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) as ‘some have reportedly claimed.’
A statement issued by the MQM quoted a spokesperson, who termed any such allegation a ‘lie of the century.’ The spokesperson alleged that while the ISI had sent Hussain a sum of money via Brigadier Hamid Gul in 1990 at the time of general elections, Hussain had refused the amount and the witnesses to this are Gul and the then-army chief General Aslam Beg.
The statement also notes that the list of politicians and journalists who took money from the ISI, which was prepared by the then ISI chief Lt Gen (retd) Asad Durrani, did not include Hussain’s name.
The list, Hussain said, is part of the National Assembly and Supreme Court of Pakistan records. The statement also alleged that in 1988, Brigadier Imtiaz approached Hussain with a sum of money, but the MQM chief refused it at the time as well.
The statement says that Hussain’s ‘biggest crime’ was that he had not “sold his conscience to government agencies.” According to the MQM, in 1996 the then-interior minister Naseerullah Babar presented Durrani’s list to the National Assembly, which did not have Hussain’s name, but of a journalist called Altaf Hussain Qureshi.
The statement from the MQM comes on the heels of the announcement that the Supreme Court will be hearing Air Marshal (retd) Asghar Khan’s petition on February 29. The petition, which was filed in 1996, alleges that the ISI distributed money to politicians to create an alliance called the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad in 1990.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 27th, 2012.
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Another Irrelevant case and another irrelevant topic for the media to discuss in talk shows and waste our time, I have a request for the courts to kindly solve more then 1000000 pending cases which are ruining peoples life directly.
@Bingo: "Can we really afford to open such cases again when we have hundreds of more important and urgent issues at our hand"
All the problems you listed are governance problems. If the determination of who is to rule is not made by popular will but rather influenced through money and corruption, givernance will never improve. Hence this case is extremely important.
I also said that we have more than issues want to resolve but actually we have forgotten our basic rights of life…!
This is outrageous. At times when we should be concerned more about our future, we are trying to pick issues that will provide no strength to our weak and off balance democracy. The important thing is to realise, as people know now, that we did mistakes that should not be repeated. How will a verdict blaming ISI and the politicians involved in IJI, would help remedy our percent predicament. will the verdict stop our intelligence set up from conjuring support for their beloved group of politicians. Has NRO verdict made any dent on the governments will to protect the accused.
SC will be hearing to a petition filed in 1996 in 2012. So, will the petitions filed in 2012 be heard to in 2028???? --- Huh, talk about justice!!!
Let the court decide. But I predict nobody will get punished as always.
Can we really afford to open such cases again when we have hundreds of more important and urgent issues at our hand? people are dying from fake medicines, there is no electricity or gas, railways and airlines are at a standstill. SC should have better things to do than worry about what happened 20 years ago. Yes, it should be investigated but please not now. We have a lot more important stuff to do.