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By B. Muralidhar Reddy
On Friday, Rashid Quereshi, Press Secretary to the Pakistan President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, denied a report in a foreign newspaper that Gen. Musharraf had sacked a senior ISI functionary for ``mishandling'' the April 30 Presidential referendum. Asked about another report in a U.K.-based paper that Gen. Musharraf had replaced an ISI Brigadier in-charge of Kashmir operations, a senior functionary of the military Government insisted that there was no truth in it. The U.K. paper had reported that Gen. Musharraf had sacked the Brigadier in-charge of coordinating the activities of various outfits in Kashmir as a follow up to his commitment to the United States to permanently stop infiltration across the Line of Control. A few weeks after the September 11 terror strikes on American cities and the consequent decision of Pakistan to change its Afghan policy, it was reported by a section of the Western press that Islamabad had decided to shut down the Kashmir and Afghan cells in the ISI. But subsequently, a senior Minister in the Musharraf Government denied the report. Independent observers are of the view that even if the military Government had shifted the ISI Brigadier, it could not be expected to admit it. "It is only obvious that such reports would be denied''. ``Major General Ehtesham Zaim, Director General of one of the ISI units, has been working very much in his earlier position. He has not been sent back to the regular army duty as was reported in a foreign daily,'' Maj. Gen. Quereshi said reacting to a report that he had been sacked for mishandling the referendum. ``The report is totally fabricated as there is no political wing in the ISI. Such reports appearing at a time when the general elections are just coming close might have some vested interest. ``May be the reporter wants to project as if the ISI is planning to manipulate the elections which is absolutely incorrect,'' he said. However, the PPP in a press statement took serious exception to the visit of what it termed as low-level ISI officials. The party has alleged that the ISI functionaries visited PPP ticket applicants and attempted to intimidate them. The PPP said that an ISI Colonel openly tried to pre rig the election process by contacting PPP candidates in Sahiwal. It alleged that the ISI colonel asked the applicants, who were called individually, to leave the PPP and join one of the five parties promoted by the ISI — PML (Q), Tahreek-e-Insaf, Millat party, Awami Tehreek and the party of Ghanwa Bhutto. ``When the PPP applicants declined to change their loyalties, the Colonel asked them to stay in the PPP and change the party leadership. General Zia was the first to give the slogan `PPP without Bhutto is acceptable'. He and many more Generals and dictators went but PPP stayed on to triumph over all adversaries'', the statement said. The spokesman said that repeated army interference led to the humiliating debacle in Kargil, the transformation of Afghanistan's strategic depth into strategic threat, the massing of Indian forces on the borders and the "secret deal on Kashmir" about which the nation was still to be taken into confidence.
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