ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s army on Monday ordered an inquiry against a former spy chief for co-writing a book with the former chief of intelligence agency from arch-rival India that has stirred controversy on a range of issues. The US raid that killed Osama bin Laden is the most thorny issue in the ‘Spy Chronicles’, written by former chief of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Asad Durrani and AS Dulat, former chief of India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). “A formal Court of Inquiry headed by a serving Lt Gen has been ordered to probe the matter in detail,” the army said in a statement. The army barred retired Lt Gen Durrani, who served as the ISI chief in the early 1990s, from leaving the country, saying he had violated the military code of conduct. “The competent authority [has been] approached to place his [Durrani] name on the Exit Control List,” army spokesperson Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor wrote on Twitter. The former ISI chief had arrived at the Pakistan Army’s General Headquarters (GHQ) earlier in the day after being summoned to explain his position on his views expressed in the book. The ISPR had earlier tweeted about the retired military officer being summoned to the GHQ. “Lt Gen Asad Durrani, Retired, being called in GHQ on 28th May 18. Will be asked to explain his position on views attributed to him in book ‘Spy Chronicles’. Attribution taken as violation of Military Code of Conduct applicable on all serving and retired military personnel,” Major General Asif Ghafoor had posted. “The ISI probably learnt about OBL (Osama bin Laden) and he was handed over to the United States according to a mutually agreed process,” Durrani wrote in his book. This contradicts Pakistan’s official stance that it only knew of the US raid on May 2, 2011, which targeted the compound where bin Laden was holed up, after the US stealth helicopters had left its territory. The compound is in Abbottabad, next to an army academy that produces officers. “The denial of any (Pakistani) role was because cooperating with the United States to eliminate a person regarded by many in Pakistan as a ‘hero’ could have embarrassed the government,” Durrani said in the book. “(India’s) assessment is the same, that Osama bin Laden was handed over to the United States by Pakistan,” Durani’s co-author Dulat wrote. Other sensitive topics broached in the book include the Pakistani spy agency’s interference in politics and Islamabad’s support for groups fighting Indian forces in occupied Kashmir. The release of the book sparked accusations of treachery against the former spy chief after his candid views on various matters of regional and global concern came under intense public scrutiny. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had drawn a parallel between his own recent statement on the Mumbai attack case and the contents of the said book. He had also called for the National Security Council (NSC) to re-convene on the matter as it had in his [Sharif’s] case. In a similar vein, PPP’s Senator Raza Rabbani had remarked that if a politician had teamed up with an Indian counterpart to write a book like this, they would have been branded a traitor. “It is shocking that on one hand relations between Pakistan and India are at an all-time low and on the other hand, former spy chiefs of both the countries are teaming up to write a book,” the former Senate chairman had said. Published in Daily Times, May 29th 2018.