A case likely to earn bad name for ISI

A case of acrimony between a serving colonel of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate and a retired major, currently Chairman of Pakistan Tobacco Board (PTB), has landed in the office of the Director-General, ISI, Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, sources told Business Recorder.
Both the serving and the retired officers exchanged hot words, where the issue was action against misbehaviour of a grade four employee of the PTB.
According to the Major (retired), on the evening of March 9 (Tuesday) between 1500 and 1800 hours, a person calling himself "Colonel Riaz from the 1S1 in Islamabad" rang him on his cell phone while he was on a tour of interior Sindh.
He (Colonel Riaz) requested him to take a lenient view of an offence committed by one Aslam, a Beldaar of PTB, who had been proceeded against under the RSO-2000, and dismissed, in which connection he (Aslam) had filed an appeal in the Service Tribunal, Islamabad.
"I informed him (Colonel Riaz) that I could not take a lenient view because the offence was of physically assaulting one Mr. Rehmatullah BPS-17, PTB, then an officer of the Tobacco Research Station in Gujrat," said the Major.
As 'Colonel Riaz' continued his pleading, the retired Major insisted that he could not play favourites on the matter, and that his training in the armed forces militated against him playing favourites.
To this he (Colonel Riaz) responded by saying that "the army and civilians were different" after which in a not very subtle manner he stated that he knew one Federal Minister very well, and he could approach him because he was a "Yaron ka Yaar". "I told 'Colonel Riaz' that the law would take its own course, and ended the conversation," he added.
According to the Major, he had forgotten the incident till the same 'Colonel Riaz' again rang him at 0840 hours on 19th March and, in an aggressive tone, challenged his decision to issue a charge sheet against Aslam in spite of his request.
The Major stated that his purpose in writing to DG ISI "is to make him investigate whether 'Colonel Riaz' is an impostor or someone really in the service of the ISI; he needs to be proceeded against simply because the name of ISI can really terrify government servants, whatever their post or grade, into acting against their better judgement, said the Chairman of the PTB, in the letter addressed to the DG, ISI.