newly appointed Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt Gen Nadeem Anjumo According to a media report on Wednesday, Pakistani authorities have been directed not to release their photographs or video footage to the media.
Anjum was made the Director General of the ISI last month after a long standoff between Pakistan’s civilian and military leadership.
Anjum had replaced Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed, whose footage of him interacting with a reporter in Kabul during the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August this year went viral.
On Monday, Pakistan’s National Security Committee approved the country’s first national security policy.
The Director General of ISI also attended the high level meeting. However, photographs and video-recordings of the meeting released by the Pakistan government showed all other top dignitaries barring the ISI chief, The News International reported.
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A federal minister told the newspaper that the ISI chief had instructed government officials not to release any photos or video footage of anyone attending any of the meetings.
The report said that this is the reason why no photograph of Anjum is available in the media since his appointment.
According to Lt Gen (retd) Amjad Shoaib, a former Pakistani officer, the basic principle of the intelligence services is to stay away from the glare of the media and live under the cover of anonymity.
However, he added that there were instances in the past when this principle was violated by government officials, the report said.
Shoaib cited the example of the Afghan war, when photographs of ISI chief General Hameed Gul and General Javed Nasir were released to the media.
Shoaib said that when he was promoted and posted as GOC Quetta, the then Army Chief General Abdul Waheed Kakkar had advised him to stay away from the media.
Major General (Retd) Ejaz Awan, who was also in the ISI in the past, said that the new DG ISI seems to be following the pattern of doing his job without being publicized in the media.
Ideally, people should not know who the country’s intelligence operative is, Awan was quoted as saying in the report.
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