IT is a matter of great concern that the crude propaganda campaign against Army Chief General Asim Munir is not coming to an end despite repeated calls by different stakeholders and those representing different segments of the society. The targeted media campaign resurges with varying degrees of intensity after short intervals and its fresh angles have forced Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to come out with a strong statement to condemn such at-tempts. Taking to Twitter on Sunday, the PM said “Imran Khan continues to engage in a vile, sinister and mali-cious campaign against COAS General Syed Asim Munir. His trick of using proxies to threaten the Army Chief of an assassination attempt has been badly exposed”.
There are reasons to believe that the malicious campaign against the leadership of the Pakistan Army is moti-vated by a desire of the vested interests to provoke the institution, try to create disunity in its ranks and compel it to abandon the declared policy of remaining apolitical. No doubt, it was a collective decision of the institution to distance itself from politics taken during tenure of the previous Chief of Army Staff but credit must be given to the incumbent COAS for pursuing this policy religiously despite repeated provocations. A cursory glance over media reports of the last few months would confirm that all sorts of wild allegations were leveled against the Army lead-ership but the institution did not deviate from its chosen path of focusing on professional aspects – defence and security to complement efforts of the state aimed at revival of the moribund economy. As the system has become over-dependent, it would, of course, take some time for the sincere efforts of the Pakistan Army to disengage itself completely but it is strange on the part of the politicians to drag the institution back into political issues. It is also wrong on the part of the PTI to blame institutions for its current state of affairs as no one forced the party leader-ship to take a plunge into darkness. The party erred repeatedly in taking decisions that landed it into deep trouble and this is also acknowledged by the erstwhile core members of the party, who are leaving it one after another. Irrespective of the legality of the move to arrest the PTI leader from outside the court premises, the question arises who provoked the party workers and directed them towards military facilities and symbols. It is also acknowledged by party leaders that the decisions to offer resignations from the National Assembly and premature dissolution of the provincial assemblies of Punjab and KP were fundamentally flawed and harmed political interests of the party. And above all, propaganda against an Army Chief, who has a reputation of being a thorough professional, is highly regrettable as it amounts to undermining the strength of the national institution that is striving hard to safeguard interests of the country both during wars and peacetime. Propaganda against the Pakistan Army, its leadership and the country’s premier intelligence agency ISI by foreign forces and elements is understandable but it is intriguing some domestic elements should lend a helping hand to such propaganda for the sake of petty political interests. People of Pakistan value the contribution of the Pakistan Army to national causes and it was in this backdrop that the Prime Minister has declared that the people of Pakistan and the political parties strongly stood behind army chief Gen Munir and the defence forces and will thwart any attempt and conspiracy at undermining the Pakistan Army’s prestige, honour and integrity. He has said the nefarious campaign against the COAS and the Army was the result of the planning of the evil mind, the conspiratorial mind and the same elements were again headed against political and economic stability. Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb has re-lated the latest narrative of the PTI to accountability of those behind May 09 violence and clear evidence of corrup-tion in Toshakhana case. Whatever the motives, there is absolutely no justification to launch a verbal or social media campaign against national institutions and political and other grievances should be agitated either from the platform of parliament or the institution of judiciary.
