In what appears to be rather ironical, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s special advisor and spokesperson Shabaz Gill who is leading the propaganda campaign that a foreign hand, especially the US, is trying to oust the PM, is himself on the payroll of an American university. 

However, he has not declared his salary and employment in his income and assets report submitted to the Cabinet Division.

Similarly, Imran Khan’s National Security Advisor Moeed Yusuf is a Research Fellow at the US-funded think tank Mossavar-Rahmani Center at Harvard University's Kennedy School

A report in the Pakistani daily The News stated that Gill is employed as Clinical Assistant Professor in University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where his annual salary is $124,770.92.

He is also a permanent resident of the United States (US green card holder). Gill has declared his American permanent residency with the Cabinet Division but there is no mention of his salary and employment with the American university. Apart from taking the salary from his American employer, he is also drawing a pay as a special assistant of the Prime Minister from the Pakistani government in violation of the law of the country.

SAPM Shahbaz Gill still on payroll of American public university

The report says that earlier Prime Minister Imran Khan had directed the security agencies to register a case against another cabinet member Khawaja Asif for receiving salary from a foreign company while he was a member of the federal cabinet but Khan has overlooked Gill’s case. Being a close member of Khan’s core committee, Gill has access to the PM’s  house and office and official documents and communication.

Imran Khan’s National Security Advisor Moeed Yusuf had last sparked a major controversy when he said in a media interview that there was a risk of a “second 9/11” if the Western countries did not recognise the Taliban.

In August 2021, Moeed virtually threatened US President Joe Biden for not having made so much as a telephone call to Prime Minister Imran Khan since his appointment in January 2021. He said that Pakistan had other options (read China and Russia) if US President Joe Biden continued to ignore Pakistan’s leadership.

Also Read : With Joe Biden not dialling his number, impatient Imran Khan rushes top adviser to Washington

According to shishir Gupta, Executive Editor, Hindustan Times, “Yusuf scuttled the meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) NSAs by deliberately projecting a fictitious map of India in September 2020 because of which Indian NSA Ajit Doval walked out of the meeting.”

It is believed that these two advisors Gill and Moeed have unprecedented access to the Pakistani premier and are eyes and ears of Imran Khan.

US denies threat to Imran, his own advisors let Pak PM down

Then there is third ‘advisor” of Khan – the former ISI chief Lt Gen Faiz Hameed who convinced Imran Khan that Pakistan would become indispensable to the US after the withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan and after ISI under Lt Gen Faiz Hameed foisted the Haqqani Network in Kabul. But Moeed and Hameed failed to realise that the Biden administration has shifted its focus from Afghanistan-Pakistan theatre to Ukraine. 

Whether Khan’s stand off with the military establishment or the recent bogey of the ‘foreign conspiracy” to oust Imran Khan, it is believed are creations of these to advisors to get public sympathy for their master Khan.

“Khan committed a diplomatic blunder by reaching Moscow on the day President Putin ordered the Red Army to invade Ukraine. He subsequently criticised the EU for pressurizing Islamabad to vote against Russia on the UNSC resolution on the Ukraine war. Rather than explaining Pakistan's own stand on the Ukraine war, he questioned both the US and the EU for not putting pressure on India for abstaining at the UNSC,” writes Gupta. Later Khan praised the Indian foreign policy for being independent and the Indian Army for not being corrupt and indirectly hinting that the Pakistan Army was corrupt.

So far Imran Khan has been let down by his two key closemen Moeed and Gill and for this he himself is responsible. After Khan is out, these two advisors will be back in the US.

Also Read : Imran Khan and co train their guns on Nawaz Sharif — the real winner of the churn in Pakistan