The Taliban Shuffle_ Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan - Kim Barker [112]
“Sacrifice is not just to slaughter animals in the name of God,” the founder said. “Sacrifice also means leaving your country in the name of God. It means sacrificing your life in the name of God.”
His meaning seemed fairly clear.
Meanwhile, the spokesman for the charity tried to rewrite history. He said the founder was barely involved with Lash—despite founding it—and insisted Lash was now based in India. The spokesman also drew a vague line in the sand, more like a smudge—he said the charity talked about jihad, but did not set up any training camps for jihad. The man who ran the ISI when Lash was founded denied having anything to do with the group. “Such blatant lies,” he told me, adding later that Jamaat-ud-Dawa was “a good lot of people.”
These men seemed convinced of their magical powers, of their ability to wave a wand and erase a reporter’s memory. This obfuscation was not even up to Pakistan’s usual level.
With a heavy heart, I knew I needed to see Nawaz Sharif. I figured I might be able to get something out of him that he didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to tell me—as former prime minister, he’d certainly be told what was happening, but because he wasn’t a government official, he wouldn’t necessarily know that he was supposed to keep the information quiet. But this time, I planned to bring my translator along, a male chaperone. Samad drove our team out to Raiwind. I sat in the back of the car, writing up my story about the charity on my computer, trying not to think about what Sharif might try to pull this visit.
Eventually, we walked inside Sharif’s palace. Sharif looked at my translator, then me, clearly confused. He invited us both into his computer room, where we sat on a couch. Sharif sat on a chair, near a desk. When he answered my questions, he stared at my translator. My translator, embarrassed to be there, stared at the ground.
Sharif told me the right Faridkot—the one in Okara district, just a couple of hours from Lahore. He gave me the phone number for the provincial police chief. He told me what Indian and Pakistani authorities had told him about the lone surviving militant. For us, this was big news—a senior Pakistani confirming what the government had publicly denied: The attackers were from Pakistan.
“This boy says, ‘I belong to Okara, and I left my home some years ago,’ ” Sharif said, adding that he had been told that the young man would come home for a few days every six months or a year.
“He cut off his links with his parents,” Sharif also told me. “The relationship between him and his parents was not good. Then he disappeared.”
Once the interview was finished, Sharif looked at me.
“Can you ask your translator to leave?” he asked. “I need to talk to you.”
My translator looked at me with a worried forehead wrinkle.
“It’s OK,” I said.
He left. Sharif then looked at my tape recorder.
“Can you turn that off?”
I obliged.
“I have to go,” I said. “I have to write a story.”
He ignored me. “I have bought you an iPhone,” he said.
“I can’t take it.”
“Why not? It is a gift.”
“No. It’s completely unethical, you’re a source.”
“But we are friends, right?”
I had forgotten how Sharif twisted the word “friend.”
“Sure, we’re friendly, but you’re still the former prime minister of Pakistan and I can’t take an iPhone from you,” I said.
“But we are friends,” he countered. “I don’t accept that. I told you I was buying you an iPhone.”
“I told you I couldn’t take it. And we’re not those kind of friends.”
He tried a new tactic. “Oh, I see. Your translator is here, and you do not want him to see me give you an iPhone. That could be embarrassing for you.”
Exasperated, I agreed. “Sure. That’s it.”
He then offered to meet me the next day, at a friend’s apartment in Lahore, to give me the iPhone and have tea. No, I said. I was going to Faridkot. Sharif