The Federal Investigation Agency has issued a second notice to Lt Gen (retd) Amjad Shoaib, who first broke the ‘news’ of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif meeting an Israeli delegation while in a Gulf country. It had issued a no tice for him to appear before it on Wednesday. That first notice was loftily ignored, and General Shoaib did not deign to dignify it with even a reply. His claim was used by former federal minister Shireen Mazari to comment caustically on it. General Shoaib has made something of a second career for himself after retiring from the Army, and perhaps illustrates the dangers of an analyst trying to break a story, which is a different profession altogether. Two ingredients seemed to have been missed by General Shoaib: first the cross-check, because any reporter relying on a single source (unless he has been provided irrefutable documentation), and secondly the version, in which he would ask the affected person, in this case the PM, what he has to say.
General Shoaib makes no bones about his liking for the PTI, but he should count himself lucky that its amendments to the PECA Ordinance was struck down, or he too could have found himself hustled off in a police van, as was done to telejournalist Mohsin Baig, under the PTI. It is true that General Shoaib belonged to an institution whose members have a particular horror of arrest or police custody, but it is also true that the law of the land must be observed. ‘Fake news’ is increasingly a problem, and if General Shoaib is to be asked his evidence for the news as a responsible citizen, he should comply.
