Faizabad dharna Inquiry commission gives clean chit to ex-ISI chief Gen Hamid

    Islamabad, Apr 16 (PTI) Pakistan's former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) director general Lieutenant General (retd) Faiz Hamid has been exonerated by the inquiry commission established to investigate the 2017 sit-in by a hardline religious group here and Rawalpindi, it emerged on Tuesday.
    An extremist group Tehreek-i-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) held a siege of Islamabad in 2017, demanding the expulsion of the French ambassador due to the publication of blasphemous cartoons in that country.
    Later a panel of the Supreme Court led by current chief justice Qazi Faez Isa in a verdict in 2019 ordered to investigate the protest and identify the perpetrators.
    The commission was led by Syed Akhtar Ali Shah, a former civil servant, who also served as Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s police chief and included Tahir Alam Khan, a former Islamabad police chief and Khushal Khan, an additional secretary at the Ministry of Interior.
    It was tasked to identify those who planned, financed, and supported the protest and also recommended legal action against its planners and executors which disrupted life in Rawalpindi and Islamabad between November 6 and November 27, 2017.
    The commission in the report of 149 pages, 57 annexures & sub-annexures and one appendix claimed to have examined all relevant evidence but described it to be an elaborate case study on the style of governance in Pakistan.
    However, against what many would have expected, the probe gave a clean chit to the intelligence agencies and their top officials by saying that none of the former high-ups of provincial and federal governments accused the agencies or any other officials of extending facilitation to Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) protestors.
    “Since no one including the former Prime Minister, former Interior Minister, former law Minister, and former Chief Minister of Punjab, accused intelligence agencies or any other official of the agency for extending facilitation to the protestors nor other evidence was brought forward, therefore, the Commission could not connect any organization or state official in supporting TLP to organise the dharna," it stated.
    The commission also absolved the former ISI chief who was a major general working in the ISI as director general of counter-intelligence and had signed an agreement with TLP protestors to end the protest.
    He was criticised at that time on social media.
    The Commission observed that Hamid on “behalf of the security establishment had to sign the agreement as a mediator between two parties which was with the permission of (then) DG ISI (Naveed Mukhtar) and Army chief (Qamar Javed Bajwa),” the report read.
    It also stated that the then interior minister told the commission that having no other alternative; the federal government had used the services of ISI to reach out to the leadership of TLP and finally signed an agreement upon which the protestors dispersed.
    Instead, the commission held the political leadership, including the then Punjab chief minister – incumbent Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif – among others, responsible for letting the TLP protestors enter the federal capital without any resistance due to fear of threats to their lives and “apprehension of losing their vote bank”.
    It said that the protestors succeeded in entering Islamabad as both the provincial and federal governments dithered in tackling the issue at the initial stage, and the record suggested different stances of the federal government and Punjab government to deal with the issue.
    The commission mainly blamed the Punjab government, then led by Shehbaz Sharif, the current premier, for being “evasive and weak”, saying that had it acted firmly at the beginning, the situation would not have come to such a pass.
    “Punjab government’s role in keeping themselves away from the issue and letting the protesters of TLP enter Islamabad without any resistance due to fear of threats to their lives and apprehension of losing their vote bank could not be appreciated,” the commission stated. This was an omission of duty to enforce the law, it said, thus misconduct.
    Therefore, it is recommended that those found in omission may be taken to task.
    It also suggested that the Army and related agencies should not be involved in civilian matters as it adversely affects the fair image of the institution. “Army is a sacred arm of the state, therefore to avoid criticism,” it said, “the institution may not be involved in public matters.”
    It suggested zero tolerance in dealing with violent extremism. It also recommended amendments in the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) laws to increase punishment for broadcasting inflammatory material leading to violence or hatred.
    The commission also recommended that the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) be given the status of a province with full administrative and financial authority to improve its effectiveness and efficiency.
    The commission was set up in February to enforce the Supreme Court's judgment in the Faizabad Dharna case. The Supreme Court had taken suo motu notice of the sit-in on November 21, 2017, and a division bench led by Justice Qazi Faez Isa on February 6, 2019, pronounced its verdict, criticising the role of intelligence agencies in the saga.
    His judgment was not implemented and instead, a review was filed against it. However, it was not adjudicated. Isa after becoming the chief justice in September this year, Justice Isa listed for hearing the petitions that had been filed against the February 2019 verdict.
    However, most of the petitioners withdrew their petitions as a three-member bench led by Justice Isa took up the case. The government however set up a commission of inquiry to fulfil the judgment.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)