Asgar khan case: Inheritance of faltering democracy

There is constant stir in the politics of Pakistan, and it seems like that there is no end of the problems which Nawaz Sharif faces. Now the Supreme Court of Pakistan has hastened the hearing of another case. The case is quite old and it's complicated too and at the same time expresses the flurry of democracy in Pakistan. This case is related to former Air Chief Marshal of Pakistan Air Marshal Asghar Khan.

Asghar Khan was the first indigenous air force chief of Pakistan. Before partition Khan briefly served as an officer in the Indian Army he chose to join the Pakistan Air Force and subsequently secured promotion as a three star rank air force general where he was appointed to command the air force at the age of 36 in 1959– the youngest officer at the command level in the military at that time. In 1965, his dissenting opinion with Gen. Musa Khan, the army commander, over the area contingency plans and vetoing the decisions to go on war with India eventually led to his replacement with Lt-Gen. Nur Khan. After his retirement from the military in 1968, founded the Tehrik-e-Istiqlal with a secular and centrist political program, his political career focused towards the politics of agitations against the governments, and gained notability when he filed the multiple lawsuits against the PPP and the PML(N)at the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 1990s. And this case is also one of them.

What is the Issue?

Air Marshal Asghar Khan, in his petition filed in 1996, claimed that two senior army officers General Aslam Beg the then COAS of Pakistan and Lt. Gen. Asad Durrani, then Director General of ISI (and nowadays quite popular in India also for his book “Spy Chronicles” co-authored with A.S. Dulat ex. RAW chief) and then-president Ghulam Ishaq Khan doled out Rs 140 million among few individuals to thwart the bid of Pakistan People’s Party, secure victory in the 1990 elections.

The case was initiated by the air marshal after Benazir Bhutto’s interior minister, retired general Naseerullah Babar, had disclosed in the National Assembly in 1994 how the ISI had disbursed funds to purchase the loyalty of politicians and public figures so as to manipulate the 1990 elections, form the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI), and bring about the defeat of the PPP.

The petition was filed when Justice Nasim Hassan Shah was the Chief Justice of Pakistan Supreme Court, however, the verdict came after a span of 16 years on October 19, 2012 when the apex court issued a 141-page verdict, ordering legal proceedings against Gen (retd) Beg and Lt Gen (retd) Durrani, however, nothing substantial was done in this regard.

The 2012 apex court judgment, authored by the then-Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Chaudhry, had directed the Federal Investigation Agency to initiate a transparent investigation and subsequent trial if sufficient evidence is found against the former army officers. On October 19, 2012, a Supreme Court bench headed by a former chief justice of Pakistan (CJP), Iftikhar Chaudhry, directed the then PPP government to take action against the former military officials for doling Rs140 million to politicians in order to ensure the defeat of slain PPP leader Benazir Bhutto in the elections.

Reply by Nawaz?

Nawaz Sharif in his reply denied the claims of receiving Rs3.5 million from Lt. General (r) Asad Durrani or from his representatives as a donation to spend on the general election campaign of 1990. (Equating the amount in terms of Gold prices, the Rs 3.5 million of the 1990s, translates to Rs 60 million in the current era.) Nawaz Sharif also denied receiving an amount in the sum of Rs3.5 million and Rs2.5 million from Younus Habib or under his instructions. Sharif in his reply also stated that he had already recorded his statement on October 14, 2015, before the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) inquiry committee about the issue.

Who among the beneficiaries?

According to allegations by Asgar Khan, Rs140 million spent to create the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) against PPP and thwart it from winning the polls. The PPP was led by Benazir Bhutto at that time. The role of Nawaz Sharif becomes questionable as the said IJI comprised of nine parties, with a major share of Pakistan Muslim League headed by Sharif; Nawaz Sharif became the Prime Minister of the country after the so called ‘rigged’ elections.

The document implies that Mir Afzal got Rs 10 million, Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi received 5 million, Jam Sadiq Ali 5 million, Mohammed Khan Junejo 2.5 million, Pir Pagaro 2 million, Abdul Hafeez Pirzada 3 million, Yusuf Haroon 5 million, Muzaffar Hussain Shah 0.3 million, Abida Hussain 1 million, Humayun Marri 5.4 million, Jamaat-e-Islami Rs5 million; Altaf Hussain Qureshi and Mustafa Sadiq Rs0.5 million; Arbab Ghulam Aftab Rs0.3 million; Pir Noor Mohammad Shah Rs0.3 million; Arbab Faiz Mohammad Rs0.3 million; Arbab Ghulam Habib Rs0.2 million; Ismail Rahu Rs 0.2 million; Liaquat Baloch Rs1.5 million; Jam Yusuf Rs0.75 million; Nadir Magsi Rs 1 million etc. However, the only notable figure, who is relevant to this day, is Nawaz Sharif, who, according to the affidavit.

This is not first against Benazir: there was also “Operation Midnight Jackal”!

General Mirza Aslam Beg, the then-Chief of Army Staff, with the backing of the conservative President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, had ambitions to topple the Benazir Bhutto's government, and to bring a more conservative Nawaz Sharif and other conservatives in power instead.

Ghulam Ishaq’s relationship with Benazir had been rocky from the start. Perhaps it was Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s July 1989 visit which finally prompted him to oust Benazir.

According to a leaked tape, In what would later become known as Operation Midnight Jackal,  two ISI officers, later identified as Major Amir Khan and Brigadier-General Imtiaz Ahmad (also known as “Billa”) were planning the ouster of the Benazir government through a vote of no-confidence arranged by bribing and buying the loyalties of PPP parliamentarians. The plot had supposedly been engineered by President Ghulam Ishaq while Nawaz Sharif and PPP renegade Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi were to be the faces of the conspiracy to oust Benazir. The tape was confiscated by the then ISI director-general, Lt-Gen Shamsuddin Kallu, who presented it to Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Despite the opposition’s machinations, the PPP’s plan to neutralise the conspiracy worked: Benazir Bhutto survived the vote of no-trust by 12 votes. She had won the first battle but the war was far from over.

What about Conspiracy theories?

The timing of the review petition is crucial as the Supreme Leader of PML-N, Nawaz Sharif has coined the term of ‘aliens’ in the political arena and has boasted to fight against the ‘imaginary’ player. Not only Sharif is reiterating the dubious role of ‘aliens’, his hand-picked, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, has also started peddling the same agenda, although the Election Commission of Pakistan has upbraided him from uttering ‘unconstitutional’ remarks.

What is happening with Nawaz Sharif cannot be said only coincidence. This may be part of a Grand Design. Since the beginning of 2018, there has been a constant discussion on Bazwa Doctrine in Pakistan's internal politics. So, in Pakistan, the army is moving forward to play a role to ensure the compliance of code of conduct for democratically elected governments?  Nowadays by the functioning of the army and the judiciary, unwavering these apprehensions that it might be genuine.