BERN, Switzerland: Pakistan's infamous Inter Services Intelligence that has been accused of running a parallel government in the South Asian country, is now openly flouting the orders of the country's interior minister.
The Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission (A.H.R.C.) has received information that the Pakistan Embassy in Bern has allegedly refused the renewal of passports to a Pakistani family on the instructions of I.S.I. in spite of written instructions from Interior Minister Rahman Malik.
One official from the embassy privately told the family that intelligence agencies have objections on granting the renewal of passports to Sardar Shaukat Kashmir, who believes in the independence and sovereignty of Jammu and Kashmir, and wants both Islamabad and New Delhi to keep their hands off of Kashmir.
The orders from Rahman Malik to the passport authorities was flouted on the bidding of Hassan Habib, first secretary of the Pakistan Embassy in Berne, Switzerland. Habib is suspected of being an I.S.I. spook.
Since Pakistan is a rogue state, her embassy officials confiscated the passports of Kashmiri's family after taking 474 Swiss francs from them as fees for renewal of the passports.
Kashmiri, who now lives in exile in Switzerland, is the chairman of United Kashmir Peoples National Party, which advocates an independent Kashmir.
Senator Mir Hasil Bizenjo, a friend of Kashmiri since early 1980s when the two were leaders of the United Students Movement at the University of Karachi, requested Rahman Malik for renewing the passports of the Kashmiri family. In turn, Rahman Malik on June 27 directed the director general of immigration and passport to renew their passports.
Kashmiri's mother-in-law is frail and sick and his spouse and kids had wanted to go visit her in Poonch.
Pakistan passport officials sent a letter to embassy of Pakistan at Bern on July 1, requesting it to renew the passports. Following that, Hassan Habib, the first secretary at the embassy, asked the applicants to submit the fee for renewal of passports. The fees for passports were paid on 5 July 2010..
During this time the applicants were told that clearance from Islamabad has not reached Bern. An embassy staffer informed the family the intelligence agencies are reluctant to give clearance for the renewal of passports because of Kashmiri's activism for independence of his homeland.
Senator Bizenjo, who Baloch nationalists allege has strong links within the I.S.I -- a charge vehemently denied by Bizenjo --., has now told Kashmiri the dreaded agency was not granting a clearance for renewal of his family's passports.
Kashmiri was arrested by the I.S.I., first in 1992 and a second time in 1998, and was kept incommunicado in military torture cells for many months. He was severely tortured and forced to denounce the independence of Kashmir. He was offered by the I.S.I. to work for the agency at international level, but he fled from Pakistan in 1999.
Many Kashmiris prefer to work for the I.S.I. because they are said to be paying better rates than Research and Analysis Wing (R.A.W.) of India. Switching loyalties from one side to another is not uncommon among some Kashmiris, while others play both sides, insiders say.
However, Shaukat Kashmiri is a committed secular and progressive political activist.
Few years ago, I.S.I. operatives working at the Pakistan embassy in Switzerland created rowdy scenes when Kashmiri went to the Geneva Press Club to address a Press conference, the club officials told this reporter. The I.S.I. accuses him of working for its arch rival R.A.W..
Interior minister Malik, who allegedly made millions of dollars in the Iraqi food-for-oil scheme, was handpicked by President Asif Ali Zardari to head the interior ministry. Malik was once a very low official in the Federal Investigation Agency, but climbed the slippery pole of promotions allegedly through bribes, manipulations and sleaze, Pakistani media reports say.
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