Islamabad, Nov. 20: Former Pakistan military ruler, Mr Pervez Musharraf, had got printed sample currency notes with his image replacing Mohammed Ali Jinnah before his idea was disapproved by his allies, a retired bureaucrat said.
“I saw the notes of Rs 20, Rs 100 and Rs 5000 with Pervez Musharraf’s picture in 2006. Then I think he changed his mind,” the former bureaucrat said.
The former PM, Mr Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, said that Mr Musharraf had ousted him from office in 2004 when he rejected the idea of replacing Jinnah’s picture with Mr Musharraf’s image in the currency notes. He said the former dictator had made up his mind to print the new currency notes as he planned to rule for long.
After developing differences with Mr Musharraf, Mr Jamali was shown the doors and replaced briefly with Mr Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and then Mr Shaukat Aziz for the rest of the tenure until 2007.
“It so happened that I and some top officials of the State Bank of Pakistan and Pakistan Security Printing Corporation were going to Karachi from Islamabad in the same flight some time in 2006. During our journey, the officials showed me the designs of the new currency notes with Pervez Musharraf’s pictures,” former Election Commission secretary Kanwar Dilshad said.