Former spymaster Lt-Gen (retd) Faiz Hameed has refuted the allegations of conspiring against the then PML-N government in connection with Faizabad sit-in staged in 2017 by late Khadim Hussain Rizvi-led Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP).
Sources said Faiz told the inquiry commission in his recorded statement that he held talks with the TLP on the instruction of government.
Faiz was DG Counter Intelligence in the ISI – Pakistan’s premier spy agency – at the time the sit-in was held. Later he went to head the organisation after the PTI founding chairman being the country’s prime minister removed the current army chief Gen Asim Munir from the post.
He had earlier failed to comply with the first notice and didn’t appear for questioning, resulting in the issuance of another one.
The inquiry commission had also summoned PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif, who was serving as the Punjab chief minister back then, on Jan 3, but he instead requested that the questionnaire prepared for him should be shared so that he could provide detailed replies.
It had previously interviewed the then prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Ahsan Iqbal who was part of his cabinet as interior minister.
In November last year, the federal government had formed the three-member commission after the Supreme Court rejected a fact-finding committee authorised Islamabad to investigate the matter.
The commission constituted under Section 3 of the Pakistan Commission of Inquiry Act, 2017, is mandated with investigating the sit-in to identify those who planned, financed, and supported the affair that disrupted lives in Rawalpindi and Islamabad in November 2017.
