Brigadier Imtiaz - the ghost from the past

Few days ago, an ex-army man involved in the alleged massacre of MQM personnel back in 90s came to the media limelight, exposing many grand so-called secrets and making many loud-mouthed claims.

Let’s take a logical view of this fresh saga of political intrigue sending ripples through Pakistan’s politics. At a time when PML N is actively pursuing the case of Musharraf’s trial, a ghost from the pages of past comes out. Having being lost to anonymity previously, he walks over to the media, make some very controversial statements and bingo! He’s all over news, in every talk-show and the subject of every heated political discussion.

Now we shall deal with each of the pertinent points of this episode.

First, we shall see who are the immediat beneficiaries of the claimed clandestinal revelations from Brigadier Imatiaz. As is obvious, the guy went out of the way to praise Altaf Bhai and his party and to acquit him and his party of all charges whatsoever, purging them of all the follies committed and trying to devise a newer outfit for them – pure as a new-born.

Next, it totally moved the centre of attention from Musharraf’s trial to other issues, in fact non-issues if I may, since no proof whatsoever was produced to substantiate the claims which were made. Nonetheless, that did divert the focus from Musharraf’s trying to incidents of past, sparking anew a controversy involving Nawaz Sharif, ISI and many other political powerhouses.

The question, which is of vital importance in the case, is that how much truth is their in this guy’s say. One may well be amused to learn that the guy hasn’t produced any proof whatsoever which shall conform to all the accusations he’s been hurling on many people over the last few days – in fact, the way he proves things are by giving excerpts from books written by ex-army men or wives of former politicians. Seriously, how pathetic could he get?!

What’s more, while the talk of minus-one hadn’t faded yet, with it’s effects discernable already in the talks of the possibility of army intervention yet again, this guy’s allegations, resounded so loudly with the help of our clueless media, are a bid to attack the main brokers of the current political system, thus posing an immediate threat to both the credibility and sustainability of the the present elected government.

Another dimension to the whole thing is our media’s role. Our media simply seems to be on a audience-minting spree. It’s shameful on the part of our channels, above all Geo and ARY and the likes, who tend to heed more than they should to the rants which prove nothing anyway. In a bid to maintain the aura of suspense and keep an immature, mostly ignorant audience hooked to these stunts, these pathetic media channels have brought Brigadier Imtiaz just the limelight he needed. And so, the guy gets a grand fame within a few days, thanks to a few controversial statements and our bloody media outlets.

Finally, while I am not among the fandom of the much-criticized Hamid Gul, I would certainly find him credible enough when citing the opinion that ISI officals can not at all be tried for the wrongs they’ve done. ISI had been and still is, being exploited by the players of the political arena, usually contemporary governments and it’s those governments and not the ISI heads who’d be tried for the follies committed.

Lastly, I’ve a few simply queries to this issue: where was this patriot for the past 20-something years? Why did he pop out just now out of nowhere and made it big? If, according to his own admission, he has been offering bags of money to politicians, can the possibility that he himself accepted a few today and started speaking what he was made to, ruled out? Certainly not, if I may.