The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General Syed Asim Munir, is not interested in talking to the chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Imran Khan, as he is unwilling to interfere in the democratic process. This statement was made by the Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb in a recent interview with Al Jazeera.
According to the information minister, the current army chief, during his tenure as spy chief, had informed Imran Khan, who was then the prime minister, that his cabinet minister and wife were involved in corruption and had provided evidence. However, instead of taking action against the corrupt officials, Imran removed the COAS from the post of DG ISI.
Marriyum Aurangzeb further added that Imran Khan knew that the current army chief was aware of his corruption and had evidence against him. Khan believed that the COAS was providing evidence to the government to file cases against him, but the information minister dismissed these claims as being untrue.
Anti-establishment
The information minister also referred to the PTI chief’s attacks on the establishment and revealed that Imran had offered the then-chief of army staff, General (retd) Qamar Javed Bajwa, a lifetime extension behind closed doors and had even met him in President House to invite him to interfere in the process of a vote of no-confidence against him.
“Imran Khan had no problem with Bajwa when he was in power, but when Bajwa did not listen to Imran’s request, he was called out by Khan because he lost power,” she added.
Responding to a question, Marriyum Aurangzeb said that the cases filed by the Federal Investigation Agency and the National Accountability Bureau were in the courts which Imran Khan was not ready to face. Instead, Khan was trying to create a perception that the government was targeting him as part of some political vendetta or making him a victim of political victimization which was not true.
‘Death Cells’
The information minister also revealed that when Imran Khan was in power, opposition leaders who asked questions were sent to jail, where they were kept in “death cells”.
Aurangzeb said that if the government had any intention to target Imran Khan, they could have arrested him just for the “cypher thing” he was moving around with, but they did not and waited for 14 months to take action.
Imran Khan had dissolved the KP and Punjab assemblies on what he called Bajwa’s advice, but his diktats could not be followed as there was a constitution and law that would definitely take its own course. The elections would be held after completion of the constitutional tenure, the information minister said.
— Additional input from APP