The ISI role in Bosnia, Afghanistan and in keeping Sikh militancy alive has now been brought to public notice by no less a person than the former chief of the ISI, Lt. Gen. Javed Nasir (Retd), who has boasted of these "achievements" in a petition filed by him before a Lahore Terrorist Court seeking the death sentence for four top journalists responsible for a report accusing him of embezzling Pakistani Rs 3 billion.
Lt. Gen. Nasir has confirmed, perhaps for the first time before the Pakistani courts, the ISI role in Afghanistan, Bosnia and in Punjab. He has touched on just some incidents that might have been rightly or wrongly projected to highlight his achievements as the chief of the ISI, but in the process he has ensu-red that the role of Pakistan's intelligence agency in neighbouring countries, including India, have been placed on the record.
Lt. Gen. Nasir, in the petition that has been published by the South Asia Tribune, has claimed that the ISI under him decided to curb the "free hand" acquired by RAW since 1948 in the "manipulation and control of Sikh yatris" travelling to Pakistan to attend religious functions. He said he had set up the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee to wrest control from the Indian intelligence agency and had succeeded in gaining control over the management of the festivals within a year for the first time.
The former ISI chief, in his petition, has claimed that this matter had so incensed the Indian government that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had been moved to raise the issue with then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in their one-on-one meeting during the famous Lahore yatra. He said the Punjab chief minister had accompanied Mr Vajpayee and that eventually the Pakistan government ensured that the Indian plan to regain control was "aborted."
Interestingly, Lt. Gen. Nasir has cited this to substantiate a claim that RAW, along with the CIA, was behind the effort to discredit him through the newspaper.
The intention, he insisted, was to discredit him and tarnish and destroy his image as a "Sikh Friendly (sic) next to Guru status that the Sikhs had started giving him" in Pakistan. He said he had set up the Pakistan Sikh Committee during his first year as chairman of the Evacuee Trust Property Board.
Lt. Gen. Nasir, moved by the newspaper allegations to establish his credentials as an "efficient" officer, has also disclosed that Pakistan defied a United Nations ban on the supply of arms to Bosnian Muslims and airlifted sophisticated anti-tank guided missiles to help the Bosnians fight the Serbs. "Despite the UN ban on supply of arms to the besieged Bosnians, he successfully airlifted sophisticated anti-tank guided missiles which turned the tide in favour of Bosnian Muslims and forced the Serbs to lift the siege, much to the annoyance of the US government," the petition extolling the general states.
"He thus became the target of US, Indian and secular minded lobbies both inside and outside Pakistan. Having failed to buy him, the US government started a fabricated and mendaciously false propaganda against him and demanded his removal as ISI chief, failing which Pakistan would be declared a terrorist state," the petition stated.
It went on to claim that in April 1993 the US threatened to declare Pakistan a terrorist state unless Lt. Gen. Nasir was removed. "It was therefore at the behest of the US government's official demand that he was prematurely compulsorily retired from service by the caretaker government of Mir Balkh Sher Mazari on 13 May, 1993," it added.
Lt. Gen. Nasir was the ISI chief from March 1992 till May 1993. He was re-accommodated later by Gen. Pervez Musharraf but the wording of the petition filed against the Jang/News group journalists reveals a mind that does not appear to be particularly stable. He has listed a series of "achievements" that appear to come in the realm of Pakistan state secrets although, interestingly, this trial has remained largely out of the local media.
For instance, he has also taken credit for putting together a mujahideen government in Kabul in the April of 1992 after the ouster of the Soviet-backed Najibullah government.
"On March 14, 1992, I was appointed as DG, ISI, and became an instant international figure when in April 1992 (and here the I becomes he), through his persuasive power and motivational talks he brought all the warring factions of the Afghan Mujahideen to agree to the famous Peshawar accord and successfully installed the Mujahideen's first government under (President) Mujadadi in Kabul," the petition states.
The former ISI chief has also spoken at length in the petition of his close links with the Tablighi Jamaat. Describing him as an active member of the Jamaat, the petition goes on to insist that the "target is the non-militant non-violent Tablighi Jamaat, which stands for unification of all sects all over the world. By weakening it sectarianism will be strengthened indirectly."
The petition seeks to point out
that the reports casting doubts on the integrity of Lt. Gen. Nasir were
basically aimed at promoting sectarian violence by attacking the Jamaat.
This is a highly conservative organisation seeking a purist theocratic
state with no rights for women and no room for secular and liberal thought.
In fact, Lt. Gen. Nasir's petition refers frequently to the Tablighi Jamaat,
endorsing his status as an active member committed to promoting and preaching
Islam. Hence the attack on him from all outside the pale, including the
US, RAW and the secularists.