ISLAMABAD: Fallowing Supreme Court’s interim order suspending Rehman Malik’s membership to the Senate, the government on Monday promptly decided to appoint him as Advisor to the Prime Minister on Interior Affairs.
According to well-placed sources, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, who is presently in Quetta, has taken a prompt decision to make the stop-gap arrangement.Taking the PPP’s apex leadership as well as the allied parties in confidence, the Prime Minister has directed the Cabinet Division to issue the notification appointing Malik as Advisor to the PM on Interior Affairs.
“The Division is most likely to issue the notification any time from now,” the sources added.The government reacted to Supreme Court’s interim order in the dual nationality case swiftly as the Interior Ministry is serving as pivotal to the prolonged war on terror besides law and order being one of its paramount functions, the sources added.
The PPP government allocated Malik the Interior Ministry as soon as it took over after winning the 2008 elections. Since Malik was not a member to the Parliament at that time, the government appointed him as the PM’s Advisor on Interior.Later on, the PPP leadership got him elected as Senator on 27 April 2009. Thus, on the very same day he took oath as Interior Minister after getting membership to the Upper House of the Parliament. It is pertinent to note here that to be a federal Minister one has to be a member of the either house of the Parliament.
Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s second tenure. He later joined the Pakistan Peoples Party and was the trusted lieutenant and chief security officer (CSO) of martyred former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. – Onlinenews
