Islamabad: Lt. Gen. Asad Durrani (Retd), a former chief of Pakistan’s powerful spy agency Inter-Service Intelligence was on Monday barred from leaving the country and ordered to face an Army court of inquiry over a controversial book he had recently co-authored with a former head of India’s external intelligence agency RAW.
Gen. Durrani, who headed ISI from August 1990 till March 1992, along with former RAW chief A.S. Dulat, recently published a book The Spy Chronicles: RAW, ISI and the Illusion of Peace in India.
He was summoned to General Headquarters (GHQ) on Monday and asked to explain his position on the book, said a statement issued by Inter-Services Public Relations, the Pakistan military’s media wing.
It said a “competent authority” had been approached to impose a travel ban on him, and a formal court of inquiry headed by a serving lieutenant-general was ordered to probe the matter in detail. “Competent authority approached to place his name on ECL (Exit Control List),” the statement read. Those whose names are on the ECL are prohibited from leaving Pakistan. These developments came after former PM Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan People’s Party Senator Raza Rabbani voiced their reservations over the book. Mr Sharif last week demanded that an emergency meeting of the National Security Committee be summoned over the book, while Mr Rabbani, who earlier served as chairman of the Pakistan Senate, also severely criticised the teaming up of former chiefs of Pakistani and Indian spy agencies to write the book. “It is shocking that on one hand Pakistan-India relations are at an all-time low and on the other former spy chiefs of both countries are teaming up to write a book,” Mr Rabbani said.
Gen. Durrani has expressed dismay at his “own people” after facing a severe backlash over his recent book that landed him in controversy. He was also targeted by some retired Army officers on TV talk shows. Lt. Gen. Abdul Qayyum and Maj. Gen. Ijaz Awan, both retired, questioned the motive behind releasing the book on the Internet.
In the book, the two former spy chiefs have touched upon several thorny issues, including terrorism, particularly the 26/11 Mumbai attack, Kashmir and the influence of the intelligence agencies. In the book, Gen. Durrani revealed that Track-II diplomacy was in place for long and was aimed at averting war between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
