THE SECRET CASSETE WHICH MADE ASIF-ALI-ZARDARI A PRESIDENT

Faisal Raza Abidi please ask my friend Asif Ali Zardari, the President of Pakistan, if he had, or had not, sent Farooq H Naek, the incumbent Chairman Senate, to Islamabad to see me on my request when the president was himself still in the Karachi prisons while I had recently returned home after three years of imprisonment in Karachi Central Prison along with Mr Asif Ali Zardari. On the directions of Asif Ali Zardari, the incumbent President, Farooq H Naek one afternoon arrived at my house in Islamabad and I took him around in my car driving endlessly till as long as it took to play all the recordings of the infamous Malik Qayyum cassettes. Raza Abidi should ask Farooq H Naek what I am saying is correct or not. I am sure Fraooq H Naek will tell him that it was in my car that these cassettes were first heard by him. Farooq H Naek immediately asked me to give him the infamous Malik Qayyum cassettes and I told him that he should not bother because while these are with me they are just as if the same are with him but that I have to honour a commitment with the honourable man who has surfaced with these cassettes as his and his family’s life would be at risk if these cassettes were prematurely made public. I asked him to arrange so that the man could leave the country with another set of the infamous cassettes that he possessed while I hold the set that was in my custody as leverage. I am not aware of what arrangements Farooq H Naek and the PPP made for Rana Abdul Rahim to leave the country but he did end up in UK with the cassettes and the subsequent happenings are history and well known. At one stage Rana Abdul Rahim also asked me for the return of the cassettes that I had in my possession because he was frustrated at the way he was being handled by the people arranging for his visa etc. I refused to oblige him but did promise him, as one honourable man to another, that my set of cassettes will not be released till he has left the country with yet another set of the infamous Malik Qayyum cassettes. Finally, he did get out of the country with the other set of cassettes. It was in my hospital room in Lahore after having returned to it from the CCU (Cardiac Care Unit) after an open heart by-pass surgery that Rana Abdul Rahim, an IB officer, came to me saying that his conscience was bothering him a lot. He knew me from the time I was his DG IB. He thought that I was the safest man for him to confide with on the issue of the infamous Malik Qayyum cassettes. He told me what the cassettes contained and that his conscience was bothering him a lot as he considered it most unjust for the then judge Malik Qayyum to be mixed up with government functionaries to convict someone like Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. I can vouch for this officer to be honourable apolitical man answering only to the call of his conscience. I encouraged him on such a tension-ridden project when the stitches on my chest after the open-heart by-pass surgery were still extremely painful. Yet, for my leader Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and my friend Asif Ali Zardari I involved myself in that project with Rana Abdul Rahim without caring for my personal health at that point of time. Are you listening Raza Abidi?

Rana Abdul Rahim is an extremely honest man. He is as honourable as honour can be described. The PPP and its leadership owe an eternal gratitude to Rana Abdul Rahim an officer of the IB. Let me say it in as clear and unambiguous words as it can be said that had it not been for the heroic answer to the call of conscience on the part of Rana Abdul Rahim of the IB the political landscape of Pakistan would have been very different. Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari would most certainly have been convicted on the basis of a coordinated conspiracy on the part of the then executive and the then judge Malik Qayyum. Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari would have been disqualified from active politics as all recourses to justice would have been exhausted after a Supreme Court conviction which did not happen only and only due to the surfacing of the infamous Malik Qayyum cassettes which was a brave and honourable act on the part of Rana Abdul Rahim. The PPP would then have been in tatters and there would have been no need for any Musharraf-PPP negotiations. Above all the PPP would not have come back to power ever again after its top leadership had been convicted. The president owes his Presidency to Rana Abdul Rahim and the prime minister owes his prime ministership to Rana Abdul Rahim of the IB. The PPP owes everything it today has in the shape of political power over the destiny of the country and, in fact, the party itself being coherent and existent to this one great man called Rana Abdul Rahim. Instead, what actually happened with Rana Abdul Rahim, an IB officer, to whom the PPP and its leadership owes so much for having brought to surface the infamous Malik Qayyum cassettes is a very sad, pathetic and tragic commentary. Rana Abdul Rahim returned to Pakistan after long dreadful years of exile spent in an eastern European country. It was due to some influential person that he was forced to have an exile in eastern European country instead of UK so that this honorable man Rana Abdul Rahim is kept away from the leadership i.e. Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto while he could claim laurels for the great favour that Rana Abdul Rahim had done to the PPP leadership and the party itself by saving the leadership from a 100 per cent guaranteed conviction being brought about through a conspiracy between the then executive and one corrupt judge namely Malik Qayyum. On return to Pakistan after the PPP had taken power in 2008 Rana Abdul Rahim went pillar to post and could manage only one or two brief meetings with the president who was kind to him but his orders were never followed in letter and spirit by some close to the president who had been ordered by the president to help rehabilitate Rana Abdul Rahim. This man to whom the PPP and its leadership really owed was refused recognition by president’s aide who would behave with him as if he had never met him before. Many a time when Rana Abdul Rahim has had to face the frustrations of mistreatment at the hands of president’s aide he called me on phone or in person and I always tried my best to give him comfort and the will to bear the indignity that he was being forced to bear at the hands of president’s aide.