Seldom has a story in a Pakistani newspaper been front-paged across Indian newspapers carried ad verbatim across Indian channels as the Dawn ’s exclusive article dated October 6th, that spoke of a clash between the civil and military leadership of Pakistan in a meeting held some days ago.
How credible is the story and what should India make of it? If you go by the old adage for journalists, one must never “accept anything about the Government until it has been officially denied; then you know it is true.” In that sense, the Dawn story should be doubly true, as it was denied not once, but twice!
However, before officials in New Delhi and Washington break out in cheer, hoping that the account of the civil-military standoff at the meeting signals a “new dawn” for Pakistan’s actions on terror groups in the wake of the Indian DGMO’s announcement of multiple strikes across the LoC, and India’s global campaign to isolate Pakistan, the story must be read closer for what doesn’t sound as credible.
The first denial, that came from the Pakistan Prime Minister’s office several hours after the story had been published, said that the spokesperson “strongly rejected” the story, that had said that after a severe briefing by Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhury on Pakistan’s diplomatic isolation in the world, including a cold shoulder from China, and exhortations from Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, the DG-ISI was prevailed upon to allow a crackdown on “banned” terrorist organisations operating in Pakistan.
“The Spokesman termed the contents of the story not only speculative but misleading and factually incorrect. It is an amalgamation of fiction and half truths which too are invariably reported out of context,” the statement said.
Two hours later, came the revised, stronger denial from the PMO. The word “half truths” had been replaced by “fabrication” with no mention of the “context” anymore. A paragraph added spoke of how there was no difference between the ISI and the officials at “Federal and Provincial levels” to act against terrorists of all “hue and colour.”
Undoubtedly the Dawn story was well-sourced, and sourced right from the top in Pakistan. It contains far too many details of the meeting, with specifics of who said what to be a fabrication by one of Pakistan’s most renowned journalists in the country’s most respected newspaper. It is reasonable to assume that the Dawn ’s editors would have expected a denial even before going to print, and chose to run the story anyway, and it’s worth noting that they continue to stand by the story despite the two flowery denials, implying that the credibility of their sources was impeccable.
To begin with, the story hinges on a clash between Shahbaz Sharif, PM Nawaz Sharif’s younger brother, and the Director-General of the ISI General Rizwan Akhtar.
“Addressing Gen Akhtar, the younger Sharif complained that whenever action has been taken against certain groups by civilian authorities, the security establishment has worked behind the scenes to set the arrested free. Astounded onlookers describe a stunned room that was immediately aware of the extraordinary, unprecedented nature of the exchange,” the Dawn report stated.
The premise of Mr. Nawaz Sharif being the proponent of tough action against banned groups, i.e. the Lashkar e Toiba (LeT), now the Jamaat ud Dawa (JuD) led by Hafiz Saeed and the Jaish e Mohammad (JeM) led by Masood Azhar is severely flawed, for starters. For years, much before Mr. Nawaz Sharif became PM, their PMLN government in Punjab was accused of funding and giving a free run to both leaders.
Proof of that claim came from the 2010 state budget that allocated more than $1 million to JuD linked charities, and is evident from the fact that Saeed runs his operations in Muridke, a township next to the Sharif home in Raiwind, while Azhar runs his well-guarded fortress township in Bahawalpur, and both travel the country with ease.
Mr. Nawaz Sharif’s long-term Law Minister Rana Sanaullah is particularly tainted with these charges, as he has openly advocated on behalf of the two banned groups, and as recently as March this year announced that there are “no militants or no-go areas” in Punjab. Mr. Sanaullah also shared a platform during his electoral campaign with leaders of the Deobandi group Sipa-e-Sahiba, who along with its offshoot Lashkar-e-Jhangvi are accused of brutal killings of the Shia minority, Christians and Barelvi leaders in the state.
It is widely believed that these groups were originally built up by the ISI, had infiltrated the Punjab police, and several international human rights reports have alleged cases of collusion between the two. In Parliament on Thursday, opposition leader Aitzaz Ahsan went a step further in asking, why the Sharifs had given “freedom to non-state actors” to conduct “protests, rallies and give speeches in Islamabad, Lahore, Faisalabad and Karachi.”
It seems unreal that a government who has worked as closely with these leaders should now be pleading with the Pakistan army for permission to take action against these very ‘banned’ groups.
Equally surreal sounds the conclusion that the ISI DG, considered second only to the COAS in terms of power, would meekly submit to the allegations against the military, and promise, as the Dawn article says, to “to travel to each of the four provinces with a message for provincial apex committees and ISI sector commanders,” telling them not to “interfere if law enforcement acts against militant groups that are banned or until now considered off-limits for civilian action.”
The other conclusion from the meeting, that Mr. Nawaz Sharif ordered that all efforts be made to conclude the Pathankot investigation and restart the stalled Mumbai attacks-related trials in a Rawalpindi antiterrorism court, may be more easy to verify in the coming weeks.
The Pathankot case against Masood Azhar, who was freed as ransom during the IC-814 hijacking and Hafiz Saeed, who has been identified by several people involved in the Mumbai attacks as the mastermind have clearly gone nowhere, and any change in that would be apparent immediately.
Even reopening the case against LeT operations commander Zaki Ur Rahman Lakhvi who spent a happy time in prison for 7 years, and was given bail last year, even though the UNSC 1267 sanctions expressly forbids his being allowed recourse to funds, would be something to start with. The evidence collected by Pakistan’s own Federal Investigative Agency is itself enough to warrant action by the Punjab state and federal government in Pakistan, let alone the 26/11 trials in India and the US.
In the absence of that, it is safer to assume that the meeting described vividly in the Dawn ’s report was a signal for India and the international community who are looking keenly at Pakistan’s next steps. Adding to that interest is the future of civil-military relations given the upcoming retirement date of the COAS Raheel Sharif, and speculation over an extension to him amidst tensions with India.
The reported meeting, like the numerous meetings taken by PM Nawaz Sharif in the wake of the Pathankot attack to look into the evidence provided by India, seems to be a trial balloon for whether the picture presented of an enraged political leadership setting terms for a suitably cowed military leadership would be enough to open the door to a more reasoned engagement with India.
Much will depend on how seriously India views it and responds to the couched assurances on investigating the Pathankot attack and trying the 26/11 attackers. In January this year, the moves by Mr. Sharif and the NSA Nasir Khan Janjua had led to great euphoria within the Modi government. Senior PMO and MEA officials briefed on the “sea-change” in Pakistan’s attitude, and the fire-breathing Defence Minister Parrikar was moved to open up the Indian army base in Pathankot for Pakistan investigators to inspect, even as the NSAs continued to speak regularly on the telephone.
Reading much more into this meeting, given that India and Pakistan have hit rock bottom on talks at this point, with no SAARC engagement to offer any opportunities for any other bilateral communication, may not be very useful at this point. Especially now that it has been denied: Not once, but twice.
