Former Pak Army chief Bajwa has lot to tell about ex-PM Imran's rise in politics: report

Pakistan's former Army chief Gen (retd.) Qamar Javed Bajwa has a lot to tell about ousted prime minister Imran Khan, his rise in politics, and how he ran his government, a media report said on Monday. Khan, 70, has been targeting Gen Bajwa ever since his ouster from power in April by a no-confidence motion.

The chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has said he was "completely helpless" as the premier as the "real man in power" was Bajwa.

He has accused Bajwa of causing more damage to the country than an enemy could have done and of playing a "double game" against his government.

Sources close to Bajwa said he could not respond in public to what the PTI chairman alleges against him because of some "codal limitations" but it is insisted what Khan mostly says about Bajwa is untrue, The News newspaper reported.

Bajwa is now the main target of Khan who not only sees him as the sole reason for all his failures in the government but also alleges that the general had toppled his government as part of a US conspiracy.

While Khan says it was Bajwa who was controlling the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and deciding the arrest and release of politicians, the other side insists that Khan during his premiership was paranoid towards his opposition and wanted to see all his key opponents behind the bars, the report said.

These sources said when Bajwa speaks, he would have a no different tale to tell than what former director-general Federal Investigation Agency Bashir Memon had alleged about the-then prime minister Khan.

Like Memon, who had alleged he was pressured by the then prime minister to arrest his opponents, according to the sources, the former premier had also been asking Bajwa to get a number of the-then opposition politicians arrested.

The sources said that when Bajwa said how he could do it, Khan had referred to former president General Pervez Musharraf and his fashion of dealing with his political opponents during his rule.

On this, Bajwa reportedly told Khan that Musharraf was a dictator, and told Khan to order him in writing what he desired, the report said.

Khan, however, did not do it, it said.

Bajwa, 61, retired on November 29 after getting a three-year extension in 2019 by the then Prime Minister Khan, who turned out to be the biggest critic of the Pakistan Army.

In his farewell address last month, General Bajwa said that his decision to keep the military establishment "apolitical" will shield it from the "vagaries of politics" in the coup-prone country.

Since Pakistan was created 75 years ago, the Army has seized power three times and directly ruled the country for almost four decades.

Khan was ousted from power in April after losing a no-confidence vote in his leadership, which he alleged was part of a US-led conspiracy targeting him because of his independent foreign policy decisions on Russia, China, and Afghanistan.

The former cricketer-turned-politician, who came to power in 2018, is the only Pakistani Prime Minister to be ousted in a no-confidence vote in Parliament.

He alleged that the no-confidence vote was part of a US-led conspiracy targeting him because of his independent foreign policy decisions on Russia, China, and Afghanistan. The US has denied the allegations.

(PTI)