‘Parliamentary panel must investigate allegations by Haqqani’
— National Assembly on Wednesday came out with a consensus notion to back the demand of Defence Minister Khawaja Mohammed Asif for setting up a parliamentary commission to investigate an article by former ambassador to the United States Hussain Haqqani published in the US media.
“This article is directly related to our national security and top two office-bearers of the government of that time and needs to be investigated by a parliamentary commission to unearth facts,” the minister stated in the National Assembly that was also endorsed by opposition parties in the House.
“The issues like granting visa to US nationals from Washington and Dubai, operation to kill Osama bin Laden and killing our people by US agents needs threadbare and an open probe in presence of national media so that such issues are settled for ever,” he added.
Speaking in the House, the minister said, the incidents mentioned in the article of Haqqani are on record as he referred to statement of the then defence minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and an article by former president Asif Ali Zardari.
“Not only this article but also the issuance of visas and issue of unsuitable expenses worth $6 million for which no track was found, needed proper investigation,” the minister said.
He said the matter is also serious in the context that Haqqani had hurled allegations against two most important functionaries of the state. “The same functionaries had owned Haqqani as Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States. Therefore, it is imperative to also investigate if there had been any nexus between these functionaries and Haqqani.”