ISLAMABAD: Former president retied Gen Pervez Musharraf has again denied having ordered the Lal Masjid operation and says it was carried out on the directive of the capital administration at that time.

A three-member joint investigation team (JIT), whose two members had earlier refused to be part of it, interrogated on Monday the former military ruler at his Chak Shahzad farmhouse which has been declared a sub-jail.

According to sources privy to the investigation, Gen Musharraf was interrogated in connection with a double-murder case registered by Aabpara police on a complaint of Haroon Rasheed, son of Abdul Rasheed Ghazi, deputy Khateeb of Lal Masjid, who was killed in the 2007 operation at the mosque.

Mr Haroon has alleged that Gen Musharraf issued the order for the operation in which his father and grandmother Sabiha Khatoon were killed.

The former president told the JIT that the operation had been ordered by the then elected government and he had nothing to do with it. The sources quoted him as saying: “I was wrongly implicated. I did not issue any written order regarding the operation.”

He said the then capital administration had called the army for help which led to the operation. He also denied other allegations levelled against him in the FIR.

Over 100 people, including 10 army personnel and a Rangers man, were killed during the operation.

The killing of Rasheed Ghazi was confirmed when his body was found after the operation, but that of Sabiha Khatoon was never found.

A case of her “abduction” was registered by Aabpara police on June 6 last year on the directive of the Supreme Court on a complaint filed Lal Masjid Imam Maulana Abdul Aziz, son of Sabiha Khatoon and brother of slain Abdul Rasheed Ghazi.

A police officer said it was yet to be established whether the woman had been killed. He said the police record submitted to the Supreme Court in 2007 showed that no woman had been killed in the operation.

He claimed that police had checked the record of autopsies and DNA tests available with the city administration, but found no mention of the woman. Of the 88 bodies, he said, 14 were charred and beyond recognition because of the use of phosphorus bomb. All were male.

But a report submitted to the court by the national crisis management cell of the then interior ministry had stated that Abdul Rashid Ghazi and his mother were among the dead.

The sources said the JIT would meet in a couple of days to work out a plan to investigate the double-murder case and trace her body. “The disappearance of Sabiha Khatoon is an important issue. Whether she was killed or not during the operation and if she was killed what happened to her body,” the sources said, adding that a directive would also be issued to the investigation officer, in-charge of Aabpara police, sub-divisional police officer and superintendent of police in this regard.