KARACHI: Inter-Services Public Relations chief Lt Gen Asim Bajwa has said there is no inquiry being conducted against two retired lieutenant generals, Sajjad Ghani and Naveed Zaman.

Lt Gen Ghani had served as Karachi corps commander and Lt Gen Zaman had remained as Lahore corps commander.

Weeks after the news was leaked to the media, the ISPR chief confirmed the sacking of six officers by the army chief as part of the “army’s aggressive pursuit of an anti-corruption drive”.

“These officers were dismissed, punished and sent home in a single, related case,” he said, in the first official comment on the move, according to a Dawn.com report quoting his interview to a TV channel.

In reply to a question, he said: “Such actions within the army are not made public anywhere in the world.”

The news was not made public but was leaked days after the action was taken. “I did not deny the news at that time but, as I told you, it is not the institutional policy to do so. A press release was issued in the National Logistics Cell scam case because NLC was a public institution,” the spokesman said.

He said the army had a branch dedicated to investigating such activities and presenting its reports to the chief of the army staff, who took the required action.

COAS Gen Raheel Sharif had strengthened this unit of the army and was aggressively pursuing the anti-corruption campaign, he said.

The ISPR chief, however, denied ‘rumours’ about an inquiry against Gen Ghani and Gen Zaman. “There is no inquiry against the two and everything circulating except what I have confirmed is a rumour,” he said.

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2016