Don’t you ever say die By Anjum Niaz

Don’t you ever say die By Anjum Niaz
Dawn, 17 May, 2009

‘Group Captain, give me your Swiss bank account number,’ the vice president of a Fortune 40 company asks Sajad Haider, Pakistan’s air attaché at Washington DC in the 70s. ‘Get out of my office,’ Sajad tells the American. ’I’ll have your company black-listed.’ Sajad kicks up such a ruckus that the president of that company comes running on bended knees. He fires his VP for offering the bribe.

The sacked man gangs up with touts…Pakistanis, Iranians and Americans wanting to make a quick buck from salacious defence deals being offered to Pakistan Air Force. The ticking time bomb against Sajad goes off. Sahibzada Yaqub Khan, the ambassador, tells his air attaché ‘the Shah of Iran wants you to be court marshaled!’ He has personally complained to Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (ZAB) when they met at Izmir. ‘Remove him immediately and punish him severely for his seditious remarks against me,’ the Shah orders ZAB. Shah’s son-in-law Ardeshir Zahedi, the Iranian ambassador in Washington is stunned. He’s a good friend of Sajad’s. It’s later discovered that a Savak operative from Zahedi’s embassy with a hotline to the Shah has made up this horrendous lie.

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