Malik Mukhtar Shahzad’s allegation on IB Pakistan: Is intelligence agencies in Pakistan are “state within state”?

Pakistan’s Intelligence Bureau (IB) has been accused by one of its own spies of “protecting” terrorists. A serving assistant sub-inspector of IB, ASI Malik Mukhtar Ahmed Shahzad, has accused his senior officers of not taking action against terrorism suspects and filed a petition before the Islamabad High Court (IHC) requesting it to refer the matter to the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) for a thorough probe.

In the petition filed through his counsel Masroor Shah, Mr Shahzad has said he joined the IB in 2007 and that he “reported against various terrorist groups. “However, to the petitioner’s utter dismay, no action was ever been taken by IB in this respect despite concrete evidence provided to it in the form of the intelligence reports”, the petition says.

“Upon thorough intelligence gathering process, it transpired that certain high officials of the IB themselves are directly involved with the terrorist organizations having linkages with hostile enemy intelligence agencies” the petition reads.

It says some IB officials travelled to Israel and had direct links with Afghan intelligence which, it was found later, had links with another terrorist group from Kazakhstan.

“These terrorists used to disguise themselves as citrus dealers in Kot-Momin and Bhalwal, Sargodha. The business was a mere camouflage,” the petition says.

The petition goes on to say that the son of joint director IB (Punjab) was dealing with the said terrorist groups.

The petition names certain IB’s officials who are on the payroll of foreign intelligence agencies which include a joint director general, directors and deputy directors. 

The petitioner requested the court that the issue of connivance, complacency and involvement of official of IB and other senior bureaucrats raised in the petition may graciously be entrusted to ISI for investigation.

IB also recently came under attack by a joint investigation team consisting of officials from ISI, Military Intelligence and officials from other departments for ‘hampering the investigation’ into the assets of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s family.