After Kabul fell to the Taliban in 2021, a man, while sipping chai at the Serena hotel, reassured a Channel 4 reporter: “Don’t worry, everything will be okay.” Three years later, we are okay, and he is not.
The man, the myth, known for his infamous Kabul swagger, was former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt General Faiz Hameed (retired). He is now in Pakistan Army’s custody, arrested on charges of corruption and political interference. Court Martial proceedings have been initiated against him for misconduct. This includes allegedly harassing the owner of Islamabad’s ‘Top City’ housing scheme and society. He has been accused of orchestrating ISI raids on owner Moeez Khan’s residence and offices, and trying to grab the land under Top City. Additionally, three retired officers have been detained by the military in relation to Hameed’s case. Seventy-seven years after Pakistan’s Independence, who would have thought that Army officers occupying acres of land would become such a big issue one day?
Bangladesh way, but in reverse
It is definitely a pinch-us-moment to even think of any form of accountability for this once all-powerful, uniformed man, whose reign of terror spared none — from judges, politicians, journalists, businesspeople to even his own military officers. This is happening in Pakistan, where dead, alive, in-service, and retired Generals have walked away freely after breaking the country. They got away scot-free after toppling elected governments in coups, going to war on their whim, rigging elections, treating the constitution like a meaningless piece of paper that could be thrown in the dustbin, and whatnot.
This is an exception, but is there a chance it’ll become the norm for 77-year-old Pakistan? Past events would reiterate that “they [the Army] will never go after their own” so don’t blame us for being a bit sceptical. While Chief of Army Staff General Asim Munir warned during his Independence Day speech that “retribution will be sharp and painful,” it was really not a memo for the former spymaster, directed instead toward evergreen “inimical forces.” Time to go the Bangladesh way, but in reverse.
How did it all start? Like most things in Pakistani politics, with the army deciding what’s best for the country. How the 2018 experiment of bringing Imran Khan to power failed is a masterclass in how not to run your country with a single working brain cell. Establishments in the world work to destabilise other governments, but the Pakistani establishment believes in destabilising its own.
Also read: Maryam Nawaz’s journey to ‘Takht-e-Lahore’ no small feat. She will restore PML-N’s lost glory
Imran Khan’s own man
The Army decided it needed a new man who would replace the Pakistan Muslim Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Its ‘own man’, who would be an antidote to the existing two-party headache. In the khakis’ hearts and heads, Imran Khan was the would-be saviour of this poor nation—until he was not. Unhinged, unreliable and mostly unbothered encapsulate Khan’s prime ministership. And why be anything else when the blueprint of project Imran promised 10 years in the PM office without even the first ball being bowled? The Generals (Qamar Bajwa and Faiz Hameed) would get extensions and top army spots. Everyone loved everyone in this scheme obviously. Until they didn’t. Now the breakup aftermath has had more twists and turns than the sixth season of House of Cards (2018).
Faiz Hameed was to Imran Khan what Jai was to Veeru in Sholay, an irreplaceable comrade. The truth lies in the words Khan has never spoken against the former spook. When the PM’s chair was slipping, it was Bajwa who was the villain: “Neutral janwar hota hai (only animals are neutral),” Khan had said, berating Bajwa. The ex-PM was so protective of his man that he never even admitted he wanted to make him army chief. His take on the controversy to give an extension to the former ISI director general: “Main Faiz Hameed ke sath sardiyan guzarna chahta tha (I wanted to spend the winter with Faiz Hameed)”.
Hameed presided as Khan’s chief whip, persuading and threatening coalition partners to vote in the assembly. Khan might have been the prime minister, but his government was run by Hameed. Such a shame that he now welcomes the action against his BFF as the “army’s internal matter”.
Hameed is notoriously known for orchestrating the 2017 anti-blasphemy protests against the PML-N government by the far-Right group Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan. In the subsequent verdict, Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa assigned blame to and called for action against Hameed, who was then serving as Director-General of Counterintelligence. PML-N leader Ahsan Iqbal spoke about how Hameed had undermined Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and struck a deal with the mob on his own. It had forced law minister Zahid Hamid to resign. Moreover, after his verdict, Isa was hounded by the Imran Khan government through a presidential reference against him—all at the behest of Hameed.
Hameed conspired against the Nawaz Sharif government and threatened judges to give verdicts against him otherwise ISI’s hard work of two years will go to waste. When Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui spoke about being threatened, he was removed from office. Maryam Nawaz called for the immediate court martial of Hameed last April, on the charges that he had destabilised the country by conspiring against Sharif.
Also read: Pakistan parliament passes a ‘soft coup’ Act. It hurts Imran Khan’s PTI
‘State above state’
Imran Khan, in cahoots with Qamar Bajwa and Faiz Hameed, became the prime minister of Pakistan (in letter). In spirit, Bajwa drove the nation and Hameed remained a true soldier to the cause of Naya Pakistan. It can be argued that all three—Khan, Bajwa and Faiz—were fighting their own existential war to remain in power. In short, mulk gaya tel lene (screw the country). One wanted to remain PM for a lifetime, the second wanted to be COAS until his last breath, and the third had such a far-reaching ambition to become army chief that he was willing to go to any lengths for it. Even if that meant insinuating that General Asim Munir was a Shia Muslim so that the Saudis, close allies of Pakistan, try to halt his appointment as Pakistan Army chief. Or even if it meant trying to cause a rebellion against Munir in May last year.
All of this didn’t happen in the span of a few years. This is the net result of the decades of impunity enjoyed by military officers who have trampled upon and conspired against civilian rulers. Earlier, Nawaz Sharif complained that the ISI had become a “State above the State,” not even in the control of the Pakistan Army hierarchy. “We used to hear about ‘a state within a state’ but now things have gone to the extent that there’s ‘a state above the state’,” he had said. This was during Sharif’s last term, when DG ISI Zahirul Islam was all set to overthrow Sharif in a coup in 2014; a plan that even then-COAS Raheel Sharif wasn’t privy to. In 2024, we can be called a clueless State.
Hameed was confident, and rightly so. He knew he was untouchable—until he wasn’t. These folks make others worry a lot about the “image of Pakistan”, and of course, the army putting one of their own in the dock is out of the question because it means bad press worldwide. But somehow, orchestrating judicial coups and rigging elections is good for the country’s image. Will what started with Hameed also date back to Bajwa’s crimes? I wouldn’t hold my breath over it. For now, just consider this arrest a “miracle”, as the deputy PM Ishaq Dar put it. Especially considering how Dar’s cook was kidnapped by the ex-ISI DG after he was denied an extension in 2016. For that, he remains unpunished to date.
The author is a journalist from Pakistan. Her X handle is @nailainayat. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)
Always mixing satire with hard-core politics, Naila is the best columnist Print has.
It’s good to have Ms. Naila Inayat back on The Print.