ISLAMABAD: Former spy chief Lt Gen (retd) Asad Durrani has admitted that ISI Political Cell was established by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1975. It was recommendation of some board. A study was carried out for this. It is possible that the mandate and name was different but it carried out political assessment ahead of 1990 polls.

DG ISI reports to PM as Chief Executive, President as head of the state/C-in-C and also briefs three chiefs [three armed forces].

the 'Political Cell' of ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) carried out a political assessment ahead of the 1990 elections. The former director general of ISI also admitted that the-then Chief of Army Staff General Mirza Aslam Beg was his boss and was in the know.

COAS [Aslam Beg] was my boss,” Gen Durrani's startling revelations came as part of his statement to a team of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) probing the alleged distribution of estimated Rs148 crores among politicians to pollute the 1990 polls in the country.

Before this, Gen Mirza Aslam Beg claimed that he had vehemently warned the-then spy chief Gen Durrani against dragging the military into "political engineering" ahead of the 1990 polls. “I warned Durrani to be careful in handling of those [ISI] funds. After this, I never again discussed this matter with him [Durrani].

I gave him no names of politicians or the money to be distributed, because this was entirely his domain, and he was responsible to report to the president,” Gen Beg revealed in his written statement submitted to the FIA and the apex court.

Gen Durrani also admitted in the same affidavit that “ISI mandate is not assessing political scenario. They do carry our counter intelligence related to foreign issues.

Assessment is not our mandate. Internal security situation as DG ISI. It was reasonable. Except for ‘maham’ in Karachi [in early 1990s].”