Gen Durrani says action against him based on unsubstantiated info

ISLAMABAD: One of Pakistan’s former intelligence chiefs has said the government action against him wherein he is not allowed to travel abroad and his post-retirement benefits are withheld citing his alleged affiliation with India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), is based on unsubstantiated allegations.

“If they (accusers) had an iota of proof of the alleged ‘RAW’ links, by now there would have been a serious follow up,” Lt Gen ® Asad Durrani said in a document he shared with selected people. Ministry of Defence has once again requested the courts that Durrani should not be allowed foreign travel fearing he would participate in international for a discussion matters that the ministry believed fall with national security domain. The former spy chief has co-authored a book – Spy Chronicles: RAW, ISI and the Illusion of Peace – in 2018 with a former head of RAW, Amarjit Singh Dulat. Since then he is facing charges of breaching professional codes on official secrecy.

Durrani blames present and past military leaders for the ordeal he is going through. “I used to wonder why in the GHQ-sponsored events, the text of the book was being distorted, charges like revealing national secrets without any reference to its contents were being bandied about – and most importantly, no law was cited under which I was being prosecuted. A few months down the line, at least one of the root causes started making sense. It was the Asghar Khan Case (AKC) in which Aslam Beg, a former Army Chief, and I were amongst many who had been indicted by the Supreme Court”.

General Durrani says the book generated a groundswell of goodwill between Pakistan and India with discussions aimed at resolving the decades-old Kashmir imbroglio. “When the Spy Chronicles was launched on the 23 May 2018 in New Delhi, its highlight was a discussion on the book. On the stage were Manmohan Singh and Hamid Ansari, a former prime minister and vice president respectively, and the discussants, besides Farooq Abdullah, an impressive array of ex union ministers, intelligence chiefs and a national security advisor. In the presence of a galaxy of the Indian strategic community, they all argued that India must address the Kashmir issue in collaboration with Pakistan.” This favourable moment was lost in the cacophony generated for reasons that dawned on him a few months later, the former general claimed.

Sharing names of the past and present military leaders he blamed for his present situation, General Durrani says there were “good” people with the uniformed ranks who are privy to what has happened [to him & to what he says] and tried to defuse the issue but there were “hawks” who not only scuttled such efforts but “continued to up the ante”. It may be mentioned here that general Durrani had refused to speak to media person during and after his court appearance saying he would rather avoid speaking on a sub judice matter.