When I shook hands with a bespectacled, well-built bald man donning a grey suit without a tie, I thought he was a wrestler — almost six feet tall, with a nicely cut beard, a visible scar on his face.“He can’t be the brother of Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Chief of Army Staff; he might be a guest and I must be mistaken,” I thought to myself.
Brigadier (retd) Amjad, brother of Gen Kayani, introduced himself with an expressionless face and welcomed me at the porch of his house where three cars — a Mercedes, a Honda and a Corolla — were parked. The four-kanal house of Brigadier (retd) Amjad Kayani was located in a street in a middle class Rawalpindi locality.
I reached the house after driving through a bumpy road. While entering the area I was thinking of how come the alleged billionaire brother of Gen Kayani could live in this area.
When I reached the main door, I was welcomed by a silver plate hanging on the main wall inscribed with the word “Kayanis” in golden colour. I did not see even a single soldier for security there. However, a plain clothes security guard, after asking my name, opened the door. I had been hearing stories about the alleged corruption of Gen Kayani’s brothers.
Journalistic instinct of digging deep had brought me to the doorstep of Gen Kayani’s brother. I intentionally did not contact the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) intellectuals who always give a formal reply to each serious question posed to them or request not doing the story whenever one wants to do any beyond their publicity agenda.
Amjad Kayani, a retired Brigadier of the Infantry Division of the Army, is the second oldest after Gen Kayani and retired in 2005. Gen Kayani has three sisters and three brothers. The eldest sister is settled in Canada followed by Gen Kayani, Brigadier (retd) Amjad, Major (retd) Babur and Kamran Kayani, the youngest brother.
Their one sister, a major doctor in Army, was screened out and retired by a same board which Kayani was heading in 2007-08 and another is a teacher; all are settled and living their married lives in Pakistan. But one would hear whispers of alleged influence and corruption of Kayani brothers.
Amjad Kayani was the man who, back in 1998, told his siblings that they had the status by being Army officers but they lacked money to sustain their status, thus the family decided to send their youngest brother in business by leaving the Army. Kamran Kayani is the richest among all the brothers.
After welcoming me, Amjad took me to his drawing room, which was well-decorated but the paint of walls was somehow fading. After formalities he unexpectedly permitted me to ask whatever I wanted to. I told him about the rumours of his and his brother’s alleged corruption etc.
I asked him about a company owned by an ex-army officer and doing a business allegedly in the name of Gen. Kayani. The said officer remained ADC to the General for quite sometime.Brigadier (R) Amjad confirmed he too had received such complaints that the ex-army officer was using their name. However, he categorically denied that any of the four brothers ever had any link with that officer or got involved with his company.
Many in the military circles believe that former a former defence official and a former army officer did a lot of business by using their close contacts with Gen. Kayani. However, nobody is there to share any particular evidence of their “wrongdoing”. The reporter would love to write on the subject if someone comes up with evidence.
After having cold drinks we started taking tea amid a hot discussion on the allegations they faced. Visibly upset, he said what they could do if anybody wanted to drag them. “I recently hired a plaza in Pindi to start a restaurant. When someone comes to know that I’m going to start a restaurant in this plaza, they always say this is the plaza of Gen Kayani’s brother.” Then he talked about Major (R) Babar Kayani, who lives in an Inter (ISI) apartment allotted to his doctor wife who serves the agency.
Amjad Kayani said he left the Army to try his luck in business. He installed stone-crushing machines in Hattar district of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Babur had some issues with his landlord in Hattar. The landlord violated the agreement with Babur and not only ordered him out, but also started giving applications here and there. I advised Babur to approach the court. He is depositing the rent with the court as the landlord is not receiving it,” said Brig (R) Amjad.
Gen. Kayani’s youngest brother Kamran Kayani is the CEO of JKB Constructions which handled the Ring Road Project in Lahore. Kamran Kayani came into the media glare in 2009-10 when the then Leader of the Opposition Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told reporters in a press conference outside Parliament House that Gen. Kayani was so nice that when he and the Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif told Gen. Kayani that Kamran company’s work was not up to the mark he asked them to assign this job to someone else.
According to Amjad, Kamran won the same contract in an open bidding and never used the influence of his eldest brother. Once in 2004, Kamran sought his help, as the Punjab government had stalled a payment. The government released the payment but after that Kamran stopped receiving the contracts. Quoting Kamran, Amjad said: “Here everyone has their share of payment received by the contractor, and if someone violates it by using influence they cannot receive contracts,” said Amjad.
After this incident, Kamran never used the eldest brother’s help because he had learnt the tricks of the trade. Amjad proudly told this reporter that a BMW was in Kamran’s use in 2004, as he had made money from his construction business. He said Kamran’s company had been a no-limit company since 2005. No-limit company is the one that can get a project of any cost. “We rose from the ashes to the skies; why would we use the influence of our brother?”
Amjad said he would never like to be introduced by the name or designation of his brother. He said no family member would ever use Gen Kayani’s name. Asked if any of his brothers was ever favored by anybody in the name of their ‘Bhai Jaan’ Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Amjad smiled while drawing on his cigarette and said: “Yes, you’re right … but I tell you we never got any favor in his name. However, if someone favored us thinking that we are brothers of Gen. Kayani then it is their mistake, not ours,” he emphasised.
“I helped people whenever somebody came to me from the Army or elsewhere; if he had a genuine problem, I helped him if I could.”
Asked about the family’s reaction to Gen Kayani’s extension in service, he said almost every family member was against the extension. He said there were some military compulsions requiring him to continue in the office. Asked if his brother will get another job after retirement, he said: “A COAS never does a job.” Referring to Gen Jahangir Karamat, Amjad said he was the only Army Chief who opted for a job after retirement.
Amjad said they were happy that their brother will join them back, as he was not in good health due to chain smoking. “He needs rest; he will not be doing any job.”
Asked if it’s true that their mother called Gen. Kayani as ‘Majh’ (a buffalo), his face broke into a smile and nodded in the affirmative. Explaining, he said their brother was a reticent person. He said when Gen Kayani was a colonel and served Benazir Bhutto, Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi and Nawaz Sharif (about three months) as Deputy Military Secretary at the Prime Minister’s House in early 90s, he would never share anything official with any family member, so the mother would call him ‘Majh’.
“Ashfaq and I both were smokers but we decided to quit smoking in 1984. Ashfaq started smoking in 2004 when the then Army Chief appointed him as the head of a committee to probe the December 2003 attacks on him. This was the same committee in which Musharraf took a fancy to Kayani; he has also mentioned it in his memoirs — In the line of Fire. After winning the confidence of his chief my brother became the Army Chief after brief appointments as DG ISI and Vice Chief of Army Staff.”
This reporter was not allowed to take notes but Brig (R) Amjad was kind to have allowed him an audience with him without any reference and came to the car porch to say good-bye. As I sat behind the wheel, I asked Amjad if his brother would pen a book.
“He will not; if he asked me, I will not advise him because one cannot write the whole truth,” said Amjad as I slowly drove out of his home.
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