Pak president blasted Nawaz Sharief for ISI role in Bombay blasts

Then Pakistan president Ghulam Ishaq Khan had conclusive proof that the Inter-Services Intelligence was involved in the March 1993 Bombay bomb blasts which killed more than 300 people.

Armed with the evidence, Khan had ''furiously rebuked'' then prime minister Nawaz Sharief. When Sharief tried to deny the charge, Ishaq Khan insisted: ''Prime minister, don't try to convince me. The ISI is behind these blasts and I have got proof of it. If the United States declare us as a terrorist State, you will be responsible.''

This shocking revelation has been made by Muneer Ahmed in his latest Urdu book Will Pakistan Break Up?

Before stepping down as Pakistan president in July 1993, Ahmed reveals Ishaq Khan told Sharief that the impetus for these blasts came from ISI chief Lt General Javed Nasir.

Ishaq Khan said he had proof to show how the Memon brothers, the key accused in the blasts case, were kept in Karachi as government guests, how they were brought to Pakistan and then transported to Dubai.

Ahmed writes that Sharief had assigned General Nasir and Intelligence Bureau chief Brigadier Imtiaz to draft a report about who was responsible for the Bombay blasts. In their report, the two intelligence officers chose to blame the Indian government for the act of terror.

Ishaq Khan rejected the report, insisting that the crime bore the ISI's imprimatur. And so did the United States, the author adds, when then minister of state for foreign affairs Sadiq Kanju showed the report to American diplomats.

Ishaq Khan angrily asked Sharief whether General Nasir wanted Pakistan to be declared a terrorist State or wanted his country to be attacked by India.

Informing Sharief that India was ''so angry that it might attack Pakistan's Kahuta plant and lay siege of our navy,'' the former president asked his prime minister to do something about it immediately.

Sharief said he would contact P V Narasimha Rao on the telephone, the book says, but did not contact his Indian counterpart, despite the president's reminders.

The book also indicates that in July 1993, army chief General Abdul Waheed persuaded both Ishaq Khan and Sharief to resign and make way for fresh elections.

Muneer Ahmed faced a sedition case in 1994 for his book on the intelligence agencies's political role in Pakistan. The present book, too, highlights the army and ISI's role in the country's political instability.

UNI