- PTI, PPP leaders express reservations over committee being headed by retired judge and drawing most of its members from Punjab
- Defence analyst Lt General (r) Amjad Shoaib says it’s a total eyewash, a bid to save perpetrators
The federal government on Monday finally formed a seven-member inquiry committee to hold a probe into the “planted story” published in a national daily about a national security meeting held at the Prime Minister’s House last month.
According to the state-run television, Justice (r) Aamir Raza Khan will be the chairman of the committee which it will draw representatives of security agencies such as the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Military Intelligence (MI) and Intelligence Bureau (IB) as its members.
The news leak came at a time when tensions between the archrivals Pakistan and India were escalating due to unrest and atrocities in the Indian-Occupied Kashmir. It drew an outpour of criticism with the military stating that it was fed to the reporter and demanded investigations into it.
The military believes the story was published as part of a propaganda drive launched to defame the state institutions, especially the army.
Last month the participants of a corps commanders’ meeting also expressed serious concern over what they said was “feeding of false and fabricated story of an important security meeting held at the PM’s House and viewed it as the breach of national security.
According to a notification issued by the Ministry of Interior, Aamir Raza will be assisted by Punjab Ombudsman Najam Saeed, Establishment Division Secretary Tahir Shahbaz, FIA Punjab Director Dr Usman Anwar and a representative each from the ISI, MI and IB.
The notification stated the committee had been assigned four tasks: holding an enquiry into the circumstances of the alleged leak, determine the interests and motives behind the press leak/publication, establish the identity of those responsible and apportion blame on the identified individual(s).
Justice (r) Aamir Raza Khan is already serving the Punjab government as the chairperson of the board of commissioners of the Punjab Healthcare Commission.
Per the website of the Punjab Healthcare Commission, Justice (r) Aamer has been chosen as the commission’s legal expert by the Punjab government. He also served as professor of law at the University of the Punjab and adjunct faculty member of law and policy at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS).
Formerly a judge of the Lahore High Court (1979-1981) and also the advocate general of Punjab in 1979, Aamer Raza is a senior advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and is considered very close to Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
The retired judge was also nominated by Shehbaz Sharif as a member of the Punjab government in the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in 2013.
Following the leak controversy, a handout issued by the PM’s Office stated that the premier had asked Pervaiz Rasheed to step down as the information minister (after the government felt he should have done something to stop the publication of the news item).
A source at the Interior Ministry told Pakistan Today that Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had held two successive meetings with the Punjab chief minister in Lahore before the formation of the inquiry committee and most of the nominees had been proposed by the younger Sharif.
PTI, PPP HAVE RESERVATIONS OVER COMMITTEE
Meanwhile Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Secretary Information Naeemul Haq expressed serious reservations over the probe committee formation.
“We have reservations over the appointment of Justice (r) Aamer Raza Khan. We have information that the daughter of the former judge is related to Ittefaq Group,” he said, and wished that the chief justice of Pakistan had formed the probe body.
PPP leader Qamar Zaman Kaira also expressed surprise over the committee being headed by a retired judge. Kaira said that retired judges normally headed probe commissions and not committees. He said the government had termed the story as “planted”, but the statements by government ministers were contradictory.
PROBE COMMITTEE MERE EYEWASH
Defence analyst Lt General (r) Amjad Shoaib rejected the probe committee, terming it a “total eyewash”.
“It is a case of national security breach which is basically a job of intelligence officials. They have all the requisite skills and tools to investigate and identify those individuals involved. There is no need for irrelevant people to be on the probe team,” he added.
Asked to elaborate, Shoaib said that the committee needed to collect necessary evidence and data to help bring the culprits to justice.
“Since the army is the aggrieved party in this case, the ISI and MI are the relevant to this probe. They already have done a good deal of investigation and don’t need another month to finish their job,” he maintained.
The retired general also questioned the timeframe assigned to the probe committee and asserted that the timeline might lead to tempering with the evidence. He also laughed off the inclusion of 90 per cent committee members from the Punjab government, wondering that why the Punjab government was so determined to lead the probe as the breach was made from someone at the PM’s House.
“The committee composition suggests that it’s a bid to save those involved. While only two members are from the army, rest of the five individuals represent the government which reflects that efforts are on to save someone and hush up the matter,” he maintained.
He said the way the parliamentarians had greeted Senator Pervaiz Rasheed who, he added, was identified by the prime minister as the main suspect in the national security breach reflected that the politicians regarded national security as the least important matter.
