Mehrangate

Mehrangate, also known as the Asghar Khan case or Mehran bank scandal, was a major political scandal that took place during the government of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 1990.

Leading up to the 1990 Pakistani general election, the Chief of Army Staff General Mirza Aslam Beg, Director-General of Inter-Services Intelligence Lt. General Asad Durrani, and Lt. General Hamid Gul conspired against the election campaign of Benazir Bhutto. Using taxpayers' money, they formed the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI), appointed Nawaz Sharif as its leader and bribed politicians to prevent Bhutto's reelection. From the official bank accounts of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), taxpayer funds were directed and transferred to purchase the loyalty of politicians to compete with the Pakistan Peoples Party, which was much organized at that time.

The nature of the Sharif-Beg collusion was discovered by Javed Ashraf Qazi, then-Director ISI, who wanted to move the taxpayers' funds into another account but the banks failed to meet the requests, leading the new director of opening the investigation on missing funds. With media investigation in this matter further grew, the scandal became public with Asghar Khan filing a lawsuit at the Supreme Court of Pakistan against the IDA and the Pakistan Peoples Party in 1994. The case hearings and investigations went on for several years until 2012 when the Supreme Court of Pakistan eventually found Nawaz Sharif, Aslam Beg, Asad Durrani, bankers, and other conservative politicians from the PML(N) responsible and guilty of their acts.

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