This is with reference to Kamran Shafi’s “Watch it sirs, benchmarks ahoy!” Apparently, the author has once again articulated his fancies without having bothered to do his homework. I completely endorse what the army spokesperson has said regarding there being many cases where the ISI had been cleared after investigations. I would like to provide the author with not ‘just one’ but multiple examples.
One such instance where the ISI was immediately blamed was the killing of Justice Javed Iqbal’s parents. Since Justice Iqbal was hearing the ‘missing persons’ cases, all eyes were cast on the security agencies by all and sundry with their sleuthing skills exploding into action. A police probe, however, revealed that Justice Iqbal’s brother had killed his parents over a property dispute and later confessed of his crime on national TV.
Similarly, the killing of the Registrar of the Supreme Court, Hamad Raza in September 2007 got tongues wagging and fingers pointing towards the spy agency for the heinous crime that was later revealed to be the handiwork of a group of murderers that were caught from Dubai.
Apart from this, Azmat Ali Bangash, a Samaa TV correspondent, and Hayatullah Khan Dawar, a freelance journalist working in Fata were also killed by terrorists, but why blame anyone else when you have the ISI at your service as an official punching bag for personal grievances? What would the ISI accomplish by killing such individuals except ignominy is something one must think about?
Jumping to immediate conclusions is what we do best when we have nothing constructive to indulge in – or even while vacationing – which leaves us with a lot of space and time for personal biases and dislikes to seep through us onto the paper to leave a permanent blot behind.
F Z KHAN
Islamabad