Former DG ISI breaks silence over Nawaz Sharif claims of resignation threats
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ISLAMABAD: Former DG ISI Lt General (retd) Zaheerul Islam said that he had never sought the resignation of the-then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 2014.
Talking to The News here on Wednesday, Lt Gen Zaheerul Islam also categorically denied that he had sent any message through any person to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. “I never sent anyone to convey any such message to the prime minister,” he said, adding, “this is absolutely wrong.”
Instead, he insisted that at every stage during the 2014 sit-in, he had been advising the PML-N government to engage the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and Pakistan Awami Tehrik politically to end the protest. Zaheerul Islam was, however, reluctant to talk further on the subject.
Recently, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had, for the first time, claimed publicly that the former ISI chief Lt Gen (retd) Zaheer-ul-Islam had conveyed amessage to him seeking his resignation “in the middle of the night” during the 2014 anti-government sit-ins. “I received a message in the middle of the night,” Sharif told PML-N members in the party’s central executive committee meeting recently. He added: “It was said that ‘if you don’t do it you will have to face the consequences and martial law can also be imposed’. I said do whatever you want but I won’t resign.”
Nawaz Sharif, however, did not name the person who had brought the DG ISI’s message to him.
By: Ansar Abbasi
