Amidst intense speculation, Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s brother has made it clear that the powerful chief of the Pakistan Army will retire this month and not take up any job.
“A COAS (Chief of Army Staff) never does a job,” Brig (retd) Amjad, Kayani’s brother said when asked if the army chief, set to retire on November 29, will take any post-retirement job.
Referring to Gen Jahangir Karamat, Amjad said he was the only army chief who opted for a job after retirement.
Amjad said the family was happy that Gen Kayani will join them back, as he was not in good health due to chain smoking.
“He needs rest; he will not be doing any job,” he was quoted as saying by The News daily.
Asked about the family’s reaction to Kayani’s extension in service, he said almost every family member was against it.
Amjad, a successful businessman, said there were some military compulsions requiring Kayani to continue in office.
Asked if it was true that their mother called Kayani as ’Majh’ (a buffalo), he said his brother was a reticent person.
He said when Gen Kayani was a colonel and served Benazir Bhutto, Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi and Nawaz Sharif (about three months) as Deputy Military Secretary at the Prime Minister’s House in early 90s, he would never share anything official with any family member, so the mother would call him ‘Majh’
Kayani was appointed army chief by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf in 2007 and received an unprecedented three-year extension from premier Yousuf Raza Gilani in 2010.
Amjad, a retired Brigadier of the Infantry Division, is the second oldest after Gen Kayani and retired in 2005.
Gen Kayani has three sisters and three brothers.
The eldest sister is settled in Canada followed by Gen Kayani, Amjad, Major (retd) Babur and Kamran Kayani, the youngest brother.
Their one sister, a major doctor in Army, was screened out and retired by the same board which Kayani was heading in 2007-08 and another is a teacher; all are settled and living their married lives in Pakistan.
“But one would hear whispers of alleged influence and corruption of Kayani brothers,” the report said.
Amjad was the man who, back in 1998, told his siblings that they had the status by being Army officers but they lacked money to sustain their status, so the family decided to send their youngest brother in business by leaving the Army.
Kamran is the richest among all the brothers.
Asked about a company owned by an ex-army officer and doing business allegedly in the name of Gen Kayani, Amjad confirmed he too had received such complaints that the ex-army officer was using their name.
However, he categorically denied that any of the four brothers ever had any link with that officer or got involved with his company, the report said. The said officer remained ADC to the General for quite sometime.
Many in the military circles believe that a former defence official and a former army officer did a lot of business by using their close contacts with Gen Kayani.
However, nobody is there to share any particular evidence of their “wrongdoing”, the report said.
Amjad said whenever they do anything, people wanted to drag them into controversy.
“I recently hired a plaza in Pindi to start a restaurant.
When someone comes to know that I’m going to start a restaurant in this plaza, they always say this is the plaza of Gen Kayani’s brother,” he said.