In an unprecedented development, senior officials of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) on Thursday said that they would continue to seek guidance from parliament on matters of national security. It was for the first time in the parliamentary history of Pakistan that the top security agency, ISI, briefed the Senate Committee on its missions/functions and organisational structure.
According to sources, Director General ISI, Lieutenant General Shuja Pasha and some senior officials of anti-terrorism department gave a briefing on security issues to visiting Senate Standing Committee on Defence and Defence Production. They said that the premier intelligence agency reiterated its commitment that no deal would be made against national security. During a briefing in the ISI headquarters, the officials said that the ISI had played a major role in the war against terrorism. Sources said that the ISI officials were of the view that the impression of ISI's intervention in political affairs was unfounded.
Some senators opted to stay away from the meeting held at the ISI headquarters, objecting mainly to the fact that such a briefing should have been held in the Parliament House. These senators included Raza Rabbani, Professor Khursheed Ahmed and Faisal Raza Abidi.
The committee's meeting, which was earlier scheduled for December 27, was postponed to December 29. The Senate Committee, along with its Chairman retired Lieutenant General Javed Ashraf Qazi, visited the ISI headquarters to get the briefing on ISI's role in anti-terrorism operations.
According to sources, it was communicated a day before to the members of the committee that they would either use the option of reaching the ISI headquarters through a transport arrangement to be made available to them at Gate No 1 of the Parliament House. If they liked, they could use their own conveyance. In the later case, they will be required to give registration numbers of vehicles and names of drivers along with the CNIC numbers of drivers. It was learnt that the majority of them opted to use transport provided by the ISI.