Islamabad: Deposed Pakistan Premier Nawaz Sharif has maintained that Gen Pervez Musharraf launched the Kargil operations without taking into confidence, the Government or the chiefs of the Navy and Air Force and said that the violent protests during the visit of the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Lahore in 1999 were stage managed by intelligence agencies.

"As the Chief of Army Staff, Pervez Musharraf ventured into a tactical conflict having strategic ramifications with India on Kargil without even taking into confidence the Prime Minister, Naval and Air Chiefs," Sharif said refuting former Prime Minister Shujaat Hussain's July statement that the ousted leader was briefed about the Kargil operations.

Sharif said Musharraf had not even informed about his Kargil operation to fellow Corps Commanders of the Army and Chiefs of Navy and Air Force protested to him for keeping them in the dark.

"In a meeting of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet, after the Kargil battle was well under way, it shocked me when Naval and Air Chiefs strongly complained about not having been taken into confidence before Kargil misadventure," Sharif said in a rare interview to a Pakistani publication.