ISLAMABAD – The Federal Government in a dramatic move on Sunday initiated action against several serving as well as retired bureaucrats in connection with the assassination of former PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto by placing their names on the Exit Control List (ECL).
The sources in the Interior Ministry informed that the Federal Interior Secretary had placed the names of several senior bureaucrats belonging to District Management Group (DMG), Police Service of Pakistan (PSP) and other groups on the directions of Interior Minister Rehman Malik. In addition to that, the names of two retired high ranking military officers have also been included in the list, the sources further informed.
The serving bureaucrats whose names have been placed on the ECL also faced the wrath of the Federal Government as all of them have been made Officers on Special Duty (OSD).
The sources in the Ministry disclosed that Interior Ministry had compiled a list of 13 senior government officers whose names had been included in the list, however out of them nine names were confirmed to TheNation by the sources till filing of this report.
These names include former DG Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt Gen (Retd) Hamid Gul, former Chief of Intelligence Bureau (IB) Brig (Retd) Ijaz Shah, former federal interior secretary Kamal Shah, a senior bureaucrat of Punjab Government Ashfaq Anwar, former DCO Rawalpindi Irfan Elahi, Additional Inspector General of Police Chaudhry Abdul Majeed, Deputy Inspector General of Police Saud Aziz, DIG Yaseen Farooq and Superintendent of Police Khurram Shahzad.
In addition to that, the Federal Government had suspended the contract agreement of former spokesman of Interior Ministry, Brig (Retd) Javed Iqbal Cheema who was working as DG Civil Defence.
The sources in the Interior Ministry informed that the names of these serving and retired officers had been placed on the ECL in the light of UN CommissionÂ’s report on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto that had held these officials directly or indirectly responsible for the incident.
It might be possible that FIA would investigate those officers who were already conducting the investigations of Ms BhuttoÂ’s assassination. However, a high official of FIA on condition of anonymity told that the investigation team of FIA had already recorded the statements of most of these officials.
It is pertinent to mention here that PPP in its important meeting on Saturday last decided to take action against those persons who were named in the UN CommissionÂ’s report. President Asif Ali Zardari after chairing the meeting directed the Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to take action against those who were held responsible by the UN Commission.