HOW KARGIL CONSPIRACY STORIES CONVEYED TO NAWAZ SHARIF

During the Kargil crisis, Gen. Ziauddin`s exclusive briefing to the former prime minister almost always contradicted the GHQ`s version. “He was responsible for planting the seeds of intrigue on the Kargil issue in Sharif`s mind,“ according to a reliable official source. In his rash drive to convince Sharif that Musharraf`s removal as the COAS would ease tension with the Army, Ziauddin is believed to have also encouraged the former Intelligence Bureau chief Colonel (retd) Iqbal Niazi, to invent a variety of Army-backed threatening scenarios for Sharif, who apparently had an unlimited appetite for stories that painted a highly negative picture of Musharraf and the corps commanders considered close to the COAS. Khawaja Ziauddin`s desperation to please Nawaz Sharif became evident on the first day of his appointment as the ISI chief when he readily confirmed a police-doctored version about the culprits allegedly involved in the ghastly murder of Hakim Mohammad Said. On Ziauddin`s report, submitted without any independent verification, Sharif got an excuse to knock out the democratic set-up in Sindh, an act that later emerged as part of a well-engineered plot to make way for the installation of an exclusive PML-run unelected administration in Sindh. An independent Army probe later discovered that the Sindh Police`s version of the Hakim Said case, with a stamp of ISI confirmation from Gen. Ziauddin, was nothing but “a pack of lies.“ Neither Sharif nor Ziauddin, however, ever acknowledged the blunder. In another desperate attempt to please the former prime minister, Ziauddin ordered the illegal detention of Najam Sethi, the editor Friday Times, for more than two weeks. Despite the Army`s blunt refusal to initiate sedition or treason charges against Sethi, Ziauddin obliged Sharif and Saifur Rahman by keeping Sethi locked up for about 20 days. Sethi had been handed to Ziauddin`s ISI after being abducted by IB goons from his Lahore residence. Sources said Ziauddin agreed to hold Sethi in illegal detention in response to a single phone call from Saifur Rahman, who later also made Sharif speak to him on the subject. Reliable sources said that Ziauddin was also behind severe criticism of the Kargil crisis by at least two corps commanders, who later met Sharif in Ziauddin`s presence. These meetings were never reported to the COAS, who later reacted by removing both corps commanders from their posts. For Sharif, sources said, Ziauddin`s mission was to divide the corps commanders on ethnic and professional lines and to create an anti-Musharraf lobby amongst the corps commanders. “Since his appointment as the DG ISI, Ziauddin was playing a dangerous game that pitched his boss against the Army,“ observed a senior official. “His operation ultimately turned out to be hara kari (suicide).