The army is questioning four more officers, all majors, for alleged links with the banned extremist organisation Hizb-ut-Tahrir following the arrest of Brigadier Ali Khan, who had been serving at General Headquarters (GHQ) for the last two years, on the same charges.
“Four army majors are also being questioned on the same suspicions but they have not been arrested,” Maj General Athar Abbas, the Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations, told
Pakistan Today on Wednesday. However, he declined to give further details.
In the aftermath of al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s killing in a US special forces’ operation in Abbottabad on May 2, Pakistan Army is under immense pressure from the US to purge its ranks of militant sympathisers, and some western media reports on Wednesday suggested that the army’s decision to acknowledge it is investigating officers over links with Hizb-ut-Tahrir could be an attempt to counter western suspicions that it tolerates bad actors within its ranks.
A security official here, who asked not to be named, said the questioning of more army officers was a part of the scrutiny process launched by the army to weed out officers and soldiers with radical tendencies, as such things could not be tolerated in the cadres of the armed forces.
“The investigation is underway but the initial findings show that Brigadier Khan reflects the sentiments of those who oppose the increasing US influence in
Pakistan,” he said. “Khan was born in Mianwali in 1958 and was commissioned in the army in 1979, and he was considered to be among the best officials,” he added. The official disclosed that Khan was undergoing a course in Command and Staff College Quetta at the time of 9/11 and when former president Pervez Musharraf went there to address the officers in the wake of his decision to support the US’ war on terror, the detained brigadier stood up and questioned the justification of an agreement with the US. “Brigadier Khan also demanded that the agreement with the US be made public and also there must be some limits to Pakistan’s cooperation with the US,” he said. “It was after that incident that Musharraf asked for Khan’s file and stopped his promotion, and the brigadier who was likely to be promoted to the rank of major general after that course remained a brigadier until now,” the official said. “However, Khan opted to continue with his service after that instead of getting retirement and he started reaching out to other officials, urging them to oppose US aid and opt for self-reliance,” he said.
“Brigadier Khan, in his conversations with other officers and in the letters that he would write to some of them, would warn that too much reliance on the US was creating restlessness and anxiety in the cadres of the armed forces,” he said.
“Khan recently wrote a letter to President Asif Ali Zardari requesting an end to the alliance with the US and he also came up with some suggestions that could help the country achieve the goal of self-reliance,” he continued.
“The letter that Khan wrote to the president was sent to the office of General (Ashfaq Parvez) Kayani, who ordered an immediate inquiry into the whole issue,” the official said.
He said Brigadier Khan was very angry when the US carried out the covert operation in Abbottabad on May 2 to kill bin Laden and he demanded that the Americans be made answerable for violating Pakistan’s sovereignty.