Pakistan's Unknown (and probably untrue) History

As soon as I saw the headline 'How a jilted Karachi woman saved Pak-N programme' with Rauf Klasra's byline, I knew I would be blogging about it. The story far exceeds my already high expectations by combining illogic, implausability and a plot that would be rejected by the producers of James Bond for being too far-fetched.

The opening para provides a nice summary of what we should expect:

[A] shocking 30-year-old secret has been exposed. It reveals how a young woman college lecturer, feeling betrayed after a romance with a nuclear scientist of the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP), had given a lead to the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in 1978, which in turn had led to the dramatic arrest of 12 Pakistani scientists and engineers, planning to sabotage Pakistan’s nuclear sites at the behest of a superpower.

But the fun is in the details.

Brig Imtiaz recalled that as a lieutenant colonel he was posted as chief ISI Sindh in 1978. One day he received a telephone call from the sister of A K Brohi, who was a psychologist in Karachi. She informed him that she was treating a female young patient who was suffering from a disease called “secret concealment” wherein a patient could not be cured unless he or she shared this secret with someone.

So, this girl goes to see a psychologist. The psychologist, who apparently doesn't believe in honouring his patient's confidentiality, tells his sister that the patient has a secret she wants to share. I don't know about you guys, but as soon as I find out someone is keeping secrets my first impulse is to tell the ISI about it.

The lady doctor had confessed to Brig Imtiaz that she had failed to make the girl reveal the secret and thought maybe he could help her.

I doubt the lady doctor was so naive that she wasn't aware how the ISI makes people 'reveal' secrets. So this doctor thought torture was suitable treatment for a patient with psychological problems.

[T]he woman finally told him that she was carrying a very dangerous secret with her but made it clear that she would not share it even if she was killed.

Wow, her psychological problems go beyond "secret concealment" if she thinks it is possible for her to communicate from beyond her grave.

According to Brig Imtiaz, he could have easily picked her up and kept her in a safe house for a few days in isolation to make her reveal the secret but he did not adopt this traditional style of the intelligence officers. For a few days, according to his own version, Brig Imtiaz grappled with the dilemma of whether to wait or to just pick her up and try extracting information through traditional methods.

It's refreshing to see an ISI man willing to admit how routine torture is. Less refreshing is that he needed a few days to decide wheter to torture an innocent, traumitized woman.

It was during these days that one day while on his way to Clifton and driving by the consulate of a superpower, he saw a red colour Mazda car bearing a private number plate going inside at a very fast speed but he never really gave it another thought. But later, when he was sitting with the man in Clifton whom he had gone to meet, all of a sudden, his mind started working and he thought of the same red Mazda car and how it was allowed inside the consulate within a few seconds.

Okay, so you don't want to reveal which country this 'superpower' is. Fair enough, it could be either the US or the Soviet Union (although it doesn't require a particularly high IQ to figure out the superpower in question). And I suppose we could allow Brig Imtiaz to revel in his brilliance as a sleuth.

The woman told him that one day, when Munshi left for his office, he left his safe open. She looked at the half-open safe and could not resist the temptation to check its contents. She was startled to see piles of dollars inside along with some official secret files. These papers were related to Pakistan’s nuclear sites and installations.

Man, is this Munshi a half-assed spy or what. It took the ISI so long to find out he was hiding bribes and classified in a safe in his fucking office. And since he was a nuclear scientist, his office happened to be KANUPP, one of the most highly-guarded entities in the country. And he was stupid enough to leave the safe open with his girlfriend in the office? Brig Imtiaz should be weeping in shame that he only found out about this because the sister of the psychologist of the woman who knew about this got some cheap thrills at the idea of a psychologically-traumatized woman being tortured.

He asked her to help him get a key to Munshi’s suite so that he could himself inspect the stuff. She provided him the alternate key. With the help of a 70-year-old key-making expert Brig Imtiaz managed to open the foreign made safe...

Another dumbass move by Munshi. If you have evidence of treasonous activities hidden in your office, don't give your girlfriend the spare key. And correct me if I'm wrong, but is it normal to give your girlfriend the key to your office? Especially when you have enough shit hidden in there to guarantuee the death penalty.

It was revealed that actually the foreign secret agency had deputed five handlers from Washington to deal with the nuclear programme of Pakistan. These five foreign handlers included two girls, one of whose photos was seen by the heartbroken girlfriend of Munshi which made her jealous and she decided to take revenge.

Oops, we didn't mean to tell you who the 'superpower' was. But it's so difficult to narrow it down from the US and Soviet Union we thought we'd give you a clue by letting you know they were operating out of Washington. And another smart move by Munshi. Keeping the picture of a foreign spy in your wallet isn't going to hurt you down the line. By the way, since all this hapenned in pre-cell phone camera times, how exactly did Munshi get the handler's picture. Did she just hand it over to him or did he bring along a camera to one of their top-secret meetings and got her to pose. You know, just a little token for Munshi to remember her by.

Anyway, the story ends on a happy note, as all the spies are caught and punished and Brig Imtiaz honoured. All in a day's work.

A last bit of advice for Brig Imtiaz. Mike Myers is looking at scripts for the next Austin Powers movie. Give him a call.