November 04, 2008	Tuesday	Ziqa'ad 5, 1429

ISLAMABAD, Nov 3: A former deputy attorney-general, Raja Mohammad Irshad, who spilled the beans about Gen Pervez Musharraf’s alleged move during last year’s judicial crisis to get a favourable decision in a case about his eligibility to contest the presidential race, has admitted that he lost his son who was fighting alongside the Taliban against the American-led forces in Afghanistan soon after September 11, 2001.

The revelation about his son being on the side of the Taliban, and having gone inside Afghanistan, was made by Raja Irshad during an interview with Dawn News TV.

In the same interview, he had also given details of the manner in which the military establishment had contacted him, allegedly on behalf of Gen Pervez Musharraf, to persuade the then Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry for a favourable decision.

“He was a very brilliant Hafiz-e-Quran, he crossed border, he got martyred, in 2001, because he was inspired by Quran, I can never forget him,” he said.

Raja Irshad served from 2002 to September 2008 as a deputy to various chief law officers appointed by the government of Shaukat Aziz.

In the famous case of missing persons, which was being heard by Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chadhry, before his sacking, Raja Irshad, despite being the deputy attorney general, had defied the government instructions and had refused to endorse government’s position that many of the persons had died fighting alongside Talibans in Afghanistan.

“This is not fair, the allegations against missing persons, you try them in a competent court of law. Why do you keep them in illegal confinement for a number of years,” he said.

In the interview, Mr Irshad said that one of the “allegations” against him was that he was the father of a man who fought against the Americans. “I said, I can sacrifice my 100 sons for this purpose,” he said.

“I feel proud of him,” he concluded.