Former prime minister Imran Khan has urged President Arif Alvi to institute an “immediate inquiry” against General Qamar Javed Bajwa (retired) for “violating his oath” as army chief.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Fawad Chaudhry announced the party chief’s request on his Twitter account and also shared the letter written by Imran to the president.
“Some very disturbing information has now come into the public domain whereby it is clear that Gen Bajwa (retd) as COAS violated his oath of office repeatedly,” said PTI Chairman Imran in a letter dated February 14.
The former premier, in the letter, added that Gen Bajwa (retired) had “admitted to journalist Javed Chaudhry that we considered Imran Khan dangerous to the country if he continued to stay in power”.
He went on to ask: “Who gave him the power to decide that an elected prime minister was supposedly a ‘danger to the country if he continued to stay in power’?”
“Only the people through elections can decide who they want to elect as the prime minister. Taking such a right on himself is in clear violation of his oath as given in Third Schedule Article 244 of the Constitution,” Imran wrote.
He then referred to a YouTube vlog made by journalist Aftab Iqbal, saying that, according to Iqbal, “Gen Bajwa told him in conversation that he had tapes of Imran Khan’s conversations with him”.
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Calling it a “serious violation” of Bajwa’s oath as well as of his own fundamental human rights, Imran asked, “the question is why and under what authorisation was Gen Bajwa recording confidential conversations?”
The former PM then listed General Bajwa’s alleged admission that he “managed to get National Accountability Bureau case against (former finance minister) Shaukat Tarin dismissed”.
“A clear violation of the Constitutional oath because the army itself is a department under the Ministry of Defence and civilian official autonomous institutions (NAB) do not come [under] military control,” Imran wrote.
Concluding his letter, the former PM wrote, “it is your constitutional duty as President and as Supreme Commander of the Armed forces to take this immediate action and institute an inquiry so as to establish whether such grave violations of the constitution and oath of office under the constitution have taken place.”
The development is the latest in a series of statements made by the PTI chief over the former army chief’s alleged involvement in the no-confidence vote that resulted in his ouster as PM last year.
In an interview with Voice of America aired on February 11, Imran said that his government and the military were on the “same page”, which meant that “we had the organised strength of Pakistan army to help us”.
“We worked together, and you know, Pakistan was considered one of the success stories of Covid-19.”
However, Imran contended that Gen Bajwa “favoured some of the biggest crooks in the country” and didn’t think about corruption as a big problem.
“He wanted us to work with them. What that meant [was] giving them immunity from their corruption cases,” he claimed, adding that Gen Bajwa has a “very close” relationship with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
“And, for some reason, he conspired, and this regime change took place.”