Army inquiry report on Karachi incident 'rejected': Nawaz Sharif

Army inquiry report on Karachi incident 'rejected': Nawaz Sharif


PML-N supremo and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday termed the report of the inquiry carried out by the army into the events leading up to and following the arrest of his son-in-law retired Capt Mohammad Safdar in Karachi as a "cover-up", saying the report was "rejected".


"Inquiry report on Karachi incident is a cover-up scapegoating juniors and shielding the real culprits. Report “Rejected”," the ousted premier tweeted.

No other leader from the PML-N has commented on the party's official stance on the report.

Nawaz's statement comes hours after the military's media wing announced that officials of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and Pakistan Rangers, Sindh, involved in the "Karachi incident" had been removed pending further departmental proceedings for acting "overzealously".

"The court of inquiry has established that on the night of Oct 18/Oct 19, officers from Pakistan Rangers (Sindh) and ISI sector Headquarters Karachi were considerably seized with the fall out of the desecration of Mazar-e-Quaid.

"They were under increasing public pressure to ensure prompt action as per the law. Assessing the response of police authorities against this developing yet volatile situation to be slow and wanting, in a charged environment, the concerned officers decided to act, rather overzealously," the ISPR statement said.

The concerned officers "were indeed experienced enough to have acted more prudently and could have avoided creating an unwarranted situation that led to the misunderstanding between the two state institutions," an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement said.

The announcement was made after the court of inquiry constituted to redress the grievances of the Sindh inspector general on the orders of Chief of Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa was completed, according to the ISPR.

Nawaz's use of the term "rejected" in his tweet is an apparent reference to the April 29, 2017, tweet sent out by former ISPR Director General Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor which had "rejected" the directives issued by the Prime Minister's Office when Nawaz was the premier regarding an inquiry report concerning a story published in daily Dawn. The story reported the details of a high-level civil-military meeting.

The following month, the Pakistan Army had "withdrawn" the tweet, saying it had become infructuous.

Fall out of Safdar arrest

Last month, the ISPR said the army chief had taken notice of and ordered an immediate inquiry into the "Karachi incident".

At the time, the ISPR did not specify which incident it was referring to. However, the statement came minutes after PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari called on Gen Bajwa and ISI Director General Faiz Hameed to investigate the circumstances of Safdar's arrest in Karachi last month.

On October 19, PML-N leader Safdar, who was staying at a Karachi hotel with his wife, PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz, was arrested for "violating the sanctity of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's mausoleum" a day after the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) had staged a rally in the city.

Following Safdar's arrest, a purported voice message by PML-N leader and former Sindh governor Muhammad Zubair was shared by a journalist in which Zubair alleged that the Sindh inspector general of police was kidnapped and forced to register the first information report against Maryam, her husband Safdar and 200 others for violating the sanctity of the Quaid's mausoleum.

In the audio clip circulating on Twitter, Zubair purportedly said that Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah confirmed to him that police was pressured into making the arrest. "When they (police) refused to do that, Rangers kidnapped [the IGP]," Zubair had said.

Maryam had also alleged that the Sindh police chief was forcibly "taken to the sector commander's office and asked to sign on the arrest orders".

The Sindh chief minister had addressed a press conference later and said that a ministerial committee would investigate the mysterious "circumstances" that led to the early morning raid on Maryam's hotel room and arrest of her husband, but defended the police action against Safdar once an FIR had been lodged against him.

However, the presser failed to convince the police hierarchy that was in low morale following the episode and which applied for leaves en masse. Later, Sindh IGP Mushtaq Mahar decided to defer his own leave for 10 days and ordered his officers to do the same after Gen Bajwa took notice of the incident, spoke to Bilawal over the phone and promised an immediate inquiry.


COURTESY DAWN NEWS!

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