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Foreign hand in stir: Pakistan

Nirupama Subramanian

Norms for media tightened

ISLAMABAD: Over the last three months, Opposition activists in Pakistan have occasionally voiced the view that India was overly fond of President Pervez Musharraf for his "flexibility" on the Kashmir issue and, therefore, not supportive enough of its ongoing struggle against the regime.

With the Opposition struggle intensifying, India stands in the dock again, but this time accused by the Government of a conspiracy to malign the Pakistan armed forces through the ongoing judicial crisis.

A thinly-veiled banner front page report in The Post, a Pakistan daily and its sister Urdu publication Khabrein, on Friday said intelligence agencies had "unearthed a plot, funded and hatched by an enemy neighbouring country, to malign the Pakistan army during the judicial crisis".

Quoting intelligence "sources", the report said the "neighbouring country" had been making efforts for several years to "create misunderstandings about the Pakistan army in the country, as well as the world".

The Post report quoted an unnamed official as saying that a "foreign hand" had given the anti-Government protests since March 9 an "anti-army" twist with the aim of stopping "the flow of foreign investment into Pakistan" and hampering its economic growth.

Treason charge

According to the report, "authorities have found links of some political persons, active in the judicial crisis, with the intelligence wings of the neighbouring country" and cases of "high treason" would be registered against those involved when the probe is completed.

It said this neighbouring country was also funding a private TV channel in Pakistan to "achieve its objectives".

The report comes at a time when the agitation that began as a demand for the reinstatement of Pakistan Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary has started expressing anti-military sentiments, prompting the Government to take a serious view of slogans against the armed forces during Opposition protests and meetings. The state-run Associated Press of Pakistan too saw India's hand in attempts to "defame" the army in a new book on the military's business interests, which it trashed as a "plethora of misleading and concocted stories" and a "deliberate campaign" aimed at giving bad name to the country's prestigious and honourable organisation".

It described Ayesha Siddiqa, the author of "Military Inc - Inside Pakistan's Military Economy", as a "frequent visitor to India", and said her resume on the Internet "shows her in Nepal with Indians".

The Government is sending out strong messages that attempts at "defaming institutions of the state" will be put down with "an iron hand".

Tightening rules for television programmes, the Government announced on Thursday that it would strictly enforce an existing rule that requires private channels to seek permission for live coverage.

Television channels, that have been beaming the protests and pro-Chief Justice rallies live to the nation, are in a fix about Saturday's coverage of Mr. Chaudhary's visit to Abbotabad in the North-West Frontier Province, where he is scheduled to speak to lawyers.

The Government has also initiated a Supreme Court hearing on "derogatory" slogans against the military that lawyers raised on the Supreme Court premises, which Gen. Musharraf said "humiliated" the armed forces and senior judiciary.

A meeting of corps commanders on Friday presided over by Gen. Musharraf also took "serious note of the malicious campaign against institutions of state, launched by vested interests and opportunists who were acting as obstructionist forces to serve their personal interests and agenda even at the cost of flouting the rule of law", according to a military statement.

The statement squashed speculation that the military may be losing its patience with Gen. Musharraf for opening out the armed forces as a target in the ongoing agitation.

It said the corps commanders "strongly affirmed Pakistan army's support for continuity of Government's policies, both internal and external" and that the participants "reiterated support for the pivotal role of the President and the Chief of Army Staff in the ongoing reform process".

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