This past month was engaging for a variety of reasons that included the unabated genocide in Gaza, the unprovoked airstrikes on Qatar, the Arab-Muslim Summit, the Pak-Saudi Defence Pact and the 80th Special Session of the UN General Assembly; the Muslim leaders’ Summit with President Donald Trump and the expected Gaza Peace Plan. We had another drama brought to the fore by the picture of a ‘mysterious’ woman sitting behind the Defence Minister Khawaja Asif while he was delivering a statement in the UNSC. The picture went viral, causing greater embarrassment to Khawaja Asif and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She turned out to be Mrs Shama Junejo, a British citizen. Her Twitter profile says she is a journalist, columnist and consultant in diplomatic affairs. To my knowledge, she originally hails from a socially and intellectually well-known family of Sindh.
This drama caused a storm on social media, overshadowing the well-articulated speech of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in the UNGA. The Junejo episode remained the hot subject of discussion and speculation for many days, particularly in Sindh. Khawaja Asif distanced himself, claiming he did not know the lady. The Foreign Office came up with a strange explanation that created further confusion instead of clearing the mystery surrounding the matter. It simply explained that Mrs Shama Junejo was not included in the approved list of delegates to the UN Session. Khawaja Asif didn’t know her; she was not included in the official list of delegates; then how did she travel on the Prime Minister’s plane and gatecrash into UN corridors? Someone, on the condition of anonymity, says that a senior politician asked Pakistan’s Permanent Mission to the UN to facilitate her access to the UN corridors.
We witnessed the mishandling of a simple issue. Khawaja Asif was not really needed to renounce his acquaintance with the lady as instantly as he did, as if the presence of the lady would cause him reputational damage or bring a bad name to the country. Later, her photographs with Khawaja and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also surfaced on social media – most probably taken before the journey from London to New York. We were surprised to see that the ‘mysterious’ lady, disowned by Khawaja Asif and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, was decorated with the ‘Nishan-e-Imtiaz’ by the Government of Pakistan in August this year. She received her award from the High Commissioner of Pakistan in London in the presence of her husband and children. This left many supporters of the coalition government scratching their heads. It would be interesting to know who had recommended her for this prestigious award and on what grounds.
It is disingenuous to think that the presence of such a good compatriot in the official delegation of the Prime Minister would have harmed Pakistan’s interests
I know her husband, Jamshed Kazi, from my stay in Khartoum (August 2008 – March 2010). Mr Kazi belonged to the Pakistan Police Service from Sindh. He was deputed as a Security Officer to the UN Peace Mission in Khartoum. He used to frequent the Embassy for his official communications with his parent department – the Ministry of Interior – or dropped by for a cup of tea. He was a man of gentle and kind disposition and a highly professional civil servant. I never met Mrs Shama Junejo. I knew she was an artist on the small screen in Pakistan and acted in many dramas on Pakistan Television. After her marriage to Jamshed Kazi, she gave up acting and, I believe, shifted to journalism. She used to write columns in Urdu for a paper published from Lahore under the guidance of the senior journalist Ziauddin.
Mrs Shama Junejo visited her husband from time to time. Later, she shifted to the UK along with her children. Jamshed Kazi resigned from the Police Service of Pakistan to become a permanent employee of the UN. On retirement from the UN, he joined his family in the UK. After I departed from Khartoum in 2010, I lost contact with Mr Jamshed. However, the impression he left on me as a gentle and kind man never faded away from my memory.
It seems Mrs Shama Junejo never let loose the reins of industry and successfully pursued her PhD or Doctoral Degree in International Diplomacy and began consultancy in the subject. She is a pro-Israel activist and works as a lobbyist for the country, as revealed from her own tweets. In one of her tweets, she claims that she has been directly known to some senior officials and diplomats of Israel since 2018. Well, as a citizen of a democratic and free country, she has the privilege to work as a consultant with any country. It has also come to the fore that she is a great supporter of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) and a big fan of the Sharifs, who, unfortunately enough, disowned her when her presence in the Pakistan delegation came to light.
Mrs Junejo has claimed that she was working on the speech of the Prime Minister since April and that she had access to certain restricted documents. There are indications that she shifted to the hotel where the Prime Minister and his entourage were staying, to join the official delegation for departure to New York. This was necessary because of the protocol and security of the Prime Minister’s entourage. All the revelations pieced together speak of gross mismanagement of what was otherwise a simple and harmless incident.
The Prime Minister has the privilege of expanding his delegation. Had Mrs Junejo been recognised as a genuine member of the official entourage, skies would not have fallen. She enjoys a good reputation and credibility to warrant decoration by the Government of Pakistan. She, apart from being a sympathiser of PML (N) and a fan of the Sharifs, must have rendered some national services in her field to deserve a national award. It is disingenuous to think that the presence of such a good compatriot in the official delegation of the Prime Minister would have harmed Pakistan’s interests.