Kabul, Jan. 31: Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence had allegedly offered $1.5 million to an Afghan journalist to assassinate India’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Mr Jayant Prasad, and $0.8 to kill Baloch leader, Mr Brahmdagh Bugti.
In an interview that was to be aired on a Punjab-based television network on Monday, Mr Nawab Momand, who has worked with many leading media organisations, reveals that the ISI gave the money to a Kabul jeweller to be paid to him on the day he kills Mr Brahmdagh Bugti, the grandson of the legendary Baloch leader, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti.
But being true to his Pathan tradition of protecting a person seeking shelter, Mr Momand did not kill Mr Brahmdagh Bugti and instead got in touch with the authorities.
The authorities recorded his further conversations with ISI contact man Haji Ayub, who gave them the slip when they tried to arrest him. Thereafter, the ISI stepped up pressure on him, setting a month-long deadline to finish the job, Mr Momand reveals.
When he failed to carry out the order, the ISI reportedly threatened to abduct and eliminate his family. Fearing this, Mr Momand and his family fled Kabul and are now living incognito.
With his career ruined, Mr Momand says he has been forced to seek refuge with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
Ever since his grandfather Nawab Akbar Bugti was killed allegedly by Pakistan troops in August 2006, Mr Brahmdagh Bugti has remained underground in Pakistan. It is alleged that he is running the Baloch Liberation Movement from Afghanistan with the support of India’s external intelligence agency — the Research and Analysis Wing — and the Afghan government.
Pakistan has alleged that RAW provided Mr Brahmdagh Bugti with a passport, money and arms to run the insurgency movement in Balochistan.