Former Vice-President Hamid Ansari has been dragged into a controversy after a Pakistani journalist claimed that he ‘gathered information from India’ during his visits to the country between 2005-2011 and passed it on to General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who was Pakistan’s army chief at the time. In an interview, Nusrat Mirza said he had been invited by Ansari.
While the Congress opposed the BJP’s insinuations against Ansari, Pakistani journalists and diplomats have expressed doubts about Mirza’s claims. According to the journalist, the information he gathered was passed on to intelligence agencies.
Calling it a ‘dubious story’, a former Pakistani diplomat to India said that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) are not that “incompetent.”
“I don’t think ISI is that incompetent. Nor is RAW to let Mr Mirza indulge in spying activities with impunity. He might have shared his impressions and gossip, which is entirely a different matter,” the former diplomat, who did not wish to be named, told ThePrint.
‘Can’t corroborate claims’
Hamid Ansari released a statement on Wednesday refuting these claims and said a “litany of falsehood” had been unleashed against him in sections of the media and by a Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson. BJP’s Gaurav Bhatia at a press conference earlier in the day had asked Ansari and the Congress to “come clean” on Mirza’s claims.
A former ambassador who knew Ansari as a colleague told ThePrint that the ex-vice-president had an outstanding reputation as a diplomat.
“I have known Hamid Ansari, as a respected senior colleague and as a close friend, for several decades, and had benefited from his valuable insights as foreign and defence policy aide to successive prime ministers. I am outraged at the credence being given to ridiculous allegations casting aspersions on his integrity and even the patriotism of this outstanding public personality who has done our country proud,” he said.
Beena Sarwar, a noted Pakistani journalist and peace advocate, says there is no way to corroborate Mirza’s assertions.
“I had never heard of him until journalist Shakil Chaudhry interviewed him for his YouTube show, ‘The Critical Patriot’. Shakil is a credible journalist who has interviewed all kinds of people. All countries engage in some kind of espionage. There is no way to corroborate his (Nusrat Mirza’s) claims. If you are a spy, you do not tell the public that you are a spy unless you are desperate,” she told ThePrint.
Sarwar pointed to the similarities with the Kashmir Singh case, where a poor farmer from Punjab spent years in a Pakistani prison. Singh insisted he had strayed across the border mistakenly and was released because of the efforts of human rights lawyers. However, when he saw his family’s sorry financial condition upon returning to India, he told reporters that he had been recruited for espionage and made sacrifices for his country, which did not bother to look after his family.
“Mirza’s statements have created a storm in a teacup. It is actually funny how people are going ballistic about it. I’d love to know who gave him any state secrets in India…It’s like Mad magazine’s Spy vs Spy edition, where two agents are involved in underhand activities against each other. Each is as paranoid and ridiculous as the one he’s fighting. And nothing good comes out of their activities,” Sarwar said.
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‘15 minutes of fame’
Another Lahore-based journalist, Ammara Ahmad, who also visited India as part of a cross-country tour as a student at the same time, called Mirza’s statement “thoughtless banter” to get “15 minutes of fame.”
She said that Mirza was talking of the Musharraf era where the “ISI was in overdrive.” Pakistan was also in the thick of the war on terror and needed extensive intelligence. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Military Intelligence, Section 6 (MI6) also had a strong presence in the region. After the Agra Summit, relations between India and Pakistan improved as the Kashmir issue took a backseat. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Pakistani students, journalists, activists and writers visited India. Many people unusually got a month-long visa for several cities.
“So this person must have visited India too,” Ahmad said. “But he is making an airy-fairy claim. Who did he meet and which classified documents or information were revealed to him? Since he himself claims the government could not use it—it was probably useless. Even if he met 56 or so Muslim parliamentarians—what could they have told him that was of any use to the ISI?
“This story is obviously impossible to corroborate but immensely damaging to the people he met. I highly doubt the former Indian (vice) President ever met him in person or revealed any sensitive information,” Ahmad said, adding that the interview is damaging to people from the Indian and Pakistani civil society who are aching to visit their neighbouring countries but have been barred.
A former three-star general from the Pakistan Army said that General Kayani seldom met media persons during his tenure. He also pointed out Mirza’s links to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) party.
“I honestly feel that an 80 years plus man has in his senility tried to portray himself as someone very important. He is a little known journalist with strong links to ethnic MQM party. MQM has maintained a love-hate relationship with intelligence agencies in Pakistan and abroad,” the former general said on the condition of anonymity.
Moreover, a journalist attending an international seminar could never have access to such information, the former general argued “All journalists/academics from both countries after their visits get debriefed by respective intelligence people directly or indirectly. The debriefing at best identifies the topics discussed with any special emphasis by government officials and political leaders,” he added.
The former general pointed out that Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri was Pakistan’s foreign minister till 2007 and in 2010-11, it was Hina Khar. “Gen Kayani was the Army Chief from Nov end, 2007 and he seldom met the media men in his tenure nor has Nusrat Mirza claimed any personal meetings with him.”
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Who is Nusrat Mirza?
According to his LinkedIn profile, Mirza has been a journalist and columnist in Pakistan for over 50 years. He writes in The Daily Jang newspaper in Pakistan and hosts a daily show called ‘Such Baat’ for Such TV. He also claims to have written 17 books on power politics and says he was born in Delhi before the Partition. ThePrint tried to contact Mirza over the phone and WhatsApp multiple times, but the calls went unanswered.
Mirza is a vocal critic of the Indian government, and often comments on Kashmir-related issues.
One of his articles, published in Urdu daily Jang in 2018, read, “The lies against Pakistan in India are also pleasing to the people, India is carrying out state terrorism in Kashmir as well as killing innocent and unarmed civilians on the border to silence the cannons or bullets.”
In another article written in Urdu about the future of the world’s important countries, he wrote: “As far as India is concerned, the regional organisation of South Asian countries is dead. Now the Modi government has started working on bringing together groups of neighbouring countries on their own principles and to achieve regional economic goals. By doing this, he wants access to Europe and Central Asia from Iran by bypassing Pakistan.”
Some Pakistani journalists say Mirza’s association with The Daily Jang has made him a well-known name in certain circles. Moreover, he hosts talk shows and used to get invited to conferences and seminars in India. Mirza has worked as a consultant to former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in 1998 and 1999. He has degrees in engineering, political science and law.
In his statement, Hamid Ansari said invitations to foreign dignitaries in India are sent out on the advice of the government through the Ministry of External Affairs. BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia had alleged that Ansari shared “sensitive and highly classified” information with Nusrat Mirza after inviting him to India. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh condemned BJP’s claims and said the insinuations and innuendos of the BJP are “character assassination of the worst form.”
A former Indian diplomat, whom ThePrint contacted to confirm whether the MEA was involved in inviting Mirza, said the matter was personally not known to him and refused to comment on it further.
ThePrint reached out to the Ministry of External Affairs for its comments over email. The copy will be updated when they respond.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)