By:Kunwar Khuldune Shahid Friday, 14 Jun 2013 12:03 am | Comments (3) Who killed Israr Pehelvi? In what was a shocking development, a man was found dead in the late hours of Wednesday night in the Parliament House, Islamabad. The Parliament House, where the National Assembly of Pakistan had met a few hours before the body was found, was the scene of budgetary discussions as the new government presented its first budget for the coming fiscal year. According to reports the man identified as one Israr Pahlavi, was stabbed in the back repeatedly before he succumbed to the wounds and died. According to initial medical reports I. Pahlavi was killed around eight hours before his dead body was found. This makes the estimated time of his murder to be somewhere around late-afternoon, which in turn means that when Pahlavi was being stabbed in the back, the entire National Assembly was present in the Parliament. Israr Pahlavi, 58, a man of Persian-Baloch origin, was an energy expert who had been touted as the man to solve the energy predicament of countries like Pakistan, India and even Bangladesh. After he was denied Indian visa in 2009, Pahlavi’s focus remained on solving Pakistan’s gas predicament and over the past couple of years he had managed to draw the roadmap of recovery for Pakistan’s energy and finance sectors. Despite having been threatened on numerous occasions, and having been attacked in January this year, Pahlavi’s murder has come as a shock for the region. After thorough investigations on Thursday, the police, detectives, and the intelligence agency aren’t any closer to identifying the murderer. The members of the National Assembly are the first ones under suspicion of course, since they were in the Parliament House when Pahlavi was being stabbed. Even so, it is also a possibility that someone from outside might have sneaked inside the Parliament House and murdered him. Then there is the chance of someone having killed Pahlavi outside the Parliament House and hid the body inside to frame the National Assembly. A look at the collected evidence might give us a clearer picture. According to the initial forensic analysis the weapon used for the murder was a GOS knife. The GOS Specialty Knives have their headquarters in Washington, and are renowned for exporting daggers and knives to all parts of the world. However, the follow-up forensic report revealed that when Pahlavi was stabbed, he’d already been poisoned owing to a venomous snakebite. The snake under question is said to be the Arabian cobra. Doctors say it is difficult to determine whether the cobra’s poison had spread sufficiently for the man to be dead by the time he was stabbed and there is still a fair chance that the fatal wound might have come from the GOS knife. Being an energy expert, with the key to solving Pakistan’s escalating energy troubles, Israr Pahlavi’s murderer obviously seems to be someone who is against the country finding its feet in the realm of energy. However, when one digs into Pahlavi’s origin and his past, one realizes that it’s not quite as simple as that. Israr Pahlavi was of Shia origin, and with the well-documented Shia genocide in Pakistan, his murder could have been a part of the Shia killings. Every time a Shia is blatantly murdered in Pakistan, the fingers inevitably point at banned organisations that spread anti-Shia sentiments in the country. With the Salafists trying to ensure that their ideology becomes ubiquitous in the country, it is pretty obvious that there are people and organisations that wouldn’t want Pakistan to be dragged out of the energy quagmire by a Shia. Another motive behind Israr Pahlavi’s murder could be the fact that he was charging a lot for his services. Pahlavi, a daredevil at heart, was playing with the proverbial fire as he promised to single-handedly solve the energy puzzle amid antagonism galore, and hence, fittingly he cost a lot. And this is where Tachmukhammet Aziz Pena Italmaz, comes into the frame. T.A.P. Italmaz, was the second energy expert who was being considered for appointment in lieu of Pahlavi. Italmaz, a Turkmen-Afghan, might not be as qualified as Pahlavi but he has enough credentials to solve the gas shortage in the country, and also charges a lot less than what Pahlavi demanded. Italmaz might have benefited a lot from Pahlavi’s murder but the fact remains that he could have worked in tandem with the deceased to help ease out the energy crisis in Pakistan. The next suspect is Ulrich Sam, the underground king of the energy mafia, whose family has ruled the roost over oil and gas since the 1860s. It is well documented that Sam preferred Italmaz over Pahlavi, since the latter refused to bow down to his bullying. Some people actually say that Italmaz was installed as the puppet in the South Asian energy game by Sam. Ulrich Sam had every reason to do away with Pahlavi, since it would ensure that his control over the region remains intact. It has also been reported that Sam keeps a huge collection of GOS knives at his place. Another suspect is a leading industrial magnate, who is known by the pseudonym ‘Man of Steel’. The ‘Man of Steel’ is a businessman and had nothing personal against Pahlavi. However, his presence in the energy and finance sector wasn’t acceptable to the industrialist’s foreign investors. Who knows, the fear of being deprived of investment might have compelled the ‘Man of Steel’ to do something he might never have wanted to do otherwise. The sting in the tale is courtesy the fact that the ‘Man of Steel’ is also a member of the National Assembly. The last of the major suspects is Sheikh Asadullah. Asadullah owns one of the biggest oil supply companies in the world and is hence, a leading player in the energy game all over the globe. Furthermore, a lesser known fact is that he is also the mastermind behind the spread of anti-Shia sentiments around the world. And therefore Asadullah had not one, but two huge motives, to do away with Pahlavi. The Sheikh is also fond of keeping snakes as pets. One might want to examine the suspects individually, but the fact remains that all of them are bizarrely intertwined, in one way or the other. Sam is Asadullah’s chum and the man who installed Italmaz in Pakistan. Asadullah supports the banned anti-Shia organisations in Pakistan and is said to be a leading investor of the business of the ‘Man of Steel’. The ‘Man of Steel’, an MNA present in the Parliament House when Pahlavi was killed, has political connections with the banned organisations and is financially depended on Sam and Asadullah. With every single suspect having a strong motive to kill Israr Pahlavi and being linked with one or more of the other suspects, the murder mystery has become an intriguing web of suspicion. The murder has a political, economic, ethnic, religious and diplomatic backdrop; and with so many likely murders it is becoming increasingly difficult to figure out who killed Israr Pahlavi. The writer is a financial journalist and a cultural critic. Email: khulduneshahid@gmail, Twitter: @khuldune - See more at: pakistantoday.pk/2013/06/14/comment/columns/murder-inside-the-parliament-house/#sthash.yXOZ14SF.dpuf
Posted on: Sat, 15 Jun 2013 19:09:32 +0000