Gen Raheel’s statement on Karachi critical: Sethi

LAHORE: Senior analyst Najam Sethi on Friday opined that SSP Rao Anwaar held press conference against the MQM on someone’s directives. Either the Sindh government had given him a go-ahead or if it did not know about the presser then the provincial government was thinking that he was asked to hold press talk by someone else, he added.
Replying to various questions asked by Muneeb Farooq in Geo News programme ‘Aapas ki Baat’, Sethi said the two persons presented before media were apprehended some days back but their arrest had not been shown. Rao Anwaar, he said, was once very close to Asif Ali Zardari but had been sidelined for quite some time.
According to Sethi, Rao Anwaar could have been stopped, if he held the press conference without any approval from higher authorities, but the Sindh government and the IG did not try to do so. Same is the case with Saulat Mirza’s confessional video as no one knows how it was recorded.
The revelations of Saulat were true and had damaged Muttahida while benefiting the law enforcement agencies. The Karachi operation is mainly (about 75 per cent) directed towards the MQM. The JIT interrogating Saulat says he does not have evidence to prove his assertions and, therefore, should be executed in the previous case.
The MQM thinks that the Sindh government and the army were behind Rao Anwaar’s press talk and both of them are taking advantage of that with Muttahida being at the receiving end. The MQM says the green signal was given to Rao Anwaar after a meeting attended by Zardari, the Sindh chief minister and a very important personality whose name it does not want to reveal. That personality could only be from military - either the Karachi corps commander or the Rangers DG.
Sethi said the federal or the provincial government did not own the Karachi operation and Zardari developed differences with Bilawal also over the action against MQM. The PPP feared becoming the next target after the MQM because the army would take action against every criminal, he added.
The Karachi operation was being carried out with the support of the Centre and the Sindh government was being informed about the details only when required, Sethi said, adding that the action against the MQM would continue.
He said the army chief’s latest statement in Karachi was important, in which he said the destabilisation was under a planned effort, meaning that something was going to happen, as the statement might have been aimed at India because no party could work against national security without external help. More evidences with linkages to India would appear, Sethi added.
According to Sethi, the army is carrying out the operation on the basis of intelligence information but the political parties have political objectives. That’s the reason the PPP has not owned the operation.
Had the federal government and the Pemra taken action on Altaf Hussain’s speech, the army would not have to react. The army thinks that it is acting in national interest but the Sindh government is not assisting, with the federal government’s response not being up to the mark.
The reason behind not owning the operation fully is that they fear about the future in case the operation produces a consequence going against them, as the operation is not in their control. Sethi said Sindh Governor Ishrat-ul-Ebad had lost the confidence of both the army and the MQM. Three former army chiefs - Ziaul Haq, Aslam Beg and Pervez Musharraf - supported Muttahida which always enjoyed good relations with the political generals, he said, adding that Gen Asif Nawaz, the army chief in 1992 when the operation was launched previously, and the current chief, Gen Raheel Sharif, had no political ambitions.
Whenever Altaf praised the army, the objective was that they would support the military, if martial law was imposed, but the army too would have to back them, he said, adding that Altaf was unhappy after the army started to cleanse Karachi without playing politics.