Ajit Karn
Islamabad: Imran Khan, a former prime minister of Pakistan, has requested an investigation into former army chief Gen. (retd) Qamar Javed Bajwa for repeatedly breaking the terms of his oath, including secretly recording conversations with him while he was prime minister. He made this request to President Arif Alvi.
Mr. Khan requested harsh punishment against Gen. Bajwa for the crimes he had committed while leading the Pakistan Army in a letter to President Alvi dated February 14.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party released the letter’s contents, which show that the former premier urged an investigation against Gen. Bajwa on four points.
The primary complaint stemmed from claimed statements made by Gen. Bajwa that were allegedly published on February 9 in an Urdu column by writer Javed Chaudhry.
In the letter, Imran Khan stated that Mr. Chaudhry had mentioned in his column that the retired general had acknowledged that “we considered Imran Khan dangerous to the country if he continued to stay in power” and urged President Alvi to look into the matter. Mr. Khan used the pronoun “we” to refer to the general Gen. Bajwa.
A obvious breach of Gen Bajwa’s oath, according to Third Schedule Article 244 of the Pakistani Constitution, Imran Khan questioned who gave him (Bajwa) the authority to determine that an elected prime minister (Khan) was allegedly a “threat to the nation if he continued to be in office.”
Armed forces personnel are forbidden from meddling in politics according to their oath.
According to Imran Khan, Gen. Bajwa also acknowledged interfering with the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) operations to have former finance minister Shaukat Tarin exonerated of all allegations of corruption.
The Army itself is a department under the Ministry of Defence, and civilian official autonomous institutions (NAB) do not fall [under] military authority, therefore Imran Khan stated that admittance was also a “clear breach of the Constitutional oath.”
The former premier said that Aftab Iqbal, a different journalist, had stated in a YouTube vlog that “General Bajwa informed him (Iqbal) in conversation that he possessed recordings of then-PM Imran Khan’s discussions with him”
“The issue is: Why was General Bajwa recording private discussions, and with what authority?” Mr. Khan questioned the behaviour and described it as a grave breach of his oath.
Moreover, Mr. Khan said that Gen. Bajwa had violated the country’s policy of remaining neutral in the crisis by speaking out against the Russian invasion of Ukraine at a lecture.
He pleaded with the president, “In light of these violations,…I would implore you as Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces to launch an urgent investigation against him.”
Mr. Khan reminded President Alvi that it was his “Constitutional duty” to take immediate action against Gen. Bajwa by establishing an inquiry to “establish whether such grave violations of the Constitution and oath of Office under the Constitution have taken place,” citing Articles 243 and 244 of the Constitution.
When Mr. Khan repeatedly accused Mr. Bajwa of organising his expulsion in April of last year, and Mr. Bajwa started giving his side of the story by meeting with chosen media, the relationship between the two has reached a new low.
Mr. Chaudhry claims that when he questioned Gen. Bajwa about why the previous Army commander overthrew Imran Khan’s administration, Gen. Bajwa reportedly said, “We did not overturn his government. Our failure to preserve his administration was our sole transgression. Imran wished for our intervention to save his administration.
He also included a remark from Gen. Bajwa from the letter, which read: “Our interpretation was that these guys were harmful for the nation. The nation will not survive if they do.
On April 9, 2022, Mr. Khan was dismissed after a no-trust vote. He first accused the Americans of plotting to remove him, but eventually turned his guns on Gen. Bajwa.
Meanwhile, Mr. Khan said that the military establishment seemed to be continuing Gen. Bajwa’s efforts to persecute him and his party leaders at a meeting with foreign media at his Lahore mansion.
He said, “The military institution is not impartial.”
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He said that Gen. Bajwa brought in “looters and criminals” who made people’s life miserable.
“Like Sri Lanka, Pakistan is experiencing a financial crisis and increasing turmoil. He cautioned that Pakistan may see a crisis similar to 1971 (when the nation dissolved), when Bangladesh was formed.
With reference to the most recent Fitch Ratings assessment, which reduced Pakistan’s long-term foreign currency issuer default rating to “CCC,” Mr. Khan said that this meant Pakistan had already surpassed Sri Lanka, which is now going through its worst economic crisis.
