He may have said it out of conviction or perhaps to please Rawalpindi. But by demanding that former army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa “must be questioned about why he resettled these [Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP] militants,” Pakistan Defence Minister Khwaja Asif could well have unwittingly annoyed the top brass of the country’s all-powerful military [appropriately referred to as the “establishment”], which is well known for fiercely protecting the dubious actions of its leadership from public scrutiny.

Even at the cost of digressing, it would be in order to mention that some may argue that the arrest and ongoing court martial of former Director General [DG] of Pakistan army’s spy agency Inter Services Intelligence [ISI] Lt Gen Faiz Hameed [Retired] contradicts claims regarding existence of some sort of covert arrangement within the army that provides extra-constitutional immunity to Generals. While Lt Gen Hameed’s case may give the impression that as far as Rawalpindi is concerned, no one irrespective of rank is above the law, however, this notion is far from reality.

The fact of the matter is that the former DGISI’s trial is part of an elaborate plan entailing the killing of two birds with one stone conceived by Pakistan army chief Gen Syed Asim Munir with twin objectives. One, securing his own position as Pakistan’s supreme leader by politically emasculating Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf [PTI] chief Imran Khan who has dared question Rawalpindi’s extrajudicial authority and is hence a potential threat, and two, avenging the humiliation of being unceremoniously removed from the prestigious post of DG ISI by Khan in 2019 to make place for the PTI chief’s favourite Lt Gen Hameed.   

Returning to Defence Minister Asif’s demand for questioning Gen Bajwa, there’s no doubt that the Pakistan army is, through omission/commission [or both], solely responsible for the massive influx of TTP terrorists in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa [KP], particularly in Swat Valley in 2022. Readers would recall that in August that year, Swat Valley saw massive public protests against burgeoning presence of TTP fighters and this issue acquired such menacing proportions that it even came up for discussion in the National Assembly with Defence Minister Asif expressing serious apprehensions regarding success of the then ongoing peace talks between the army and TTP that were cloaked in secrecy.

However, Pakistan army’s media wing Inter Services Public Relations [ISPR] inexplicably played down this serious threat. It issued a statement that “During the past few days, a misperception about the alleged presence of [a] large number of proscribed-organisation TTP’s armed members in Swat Valley has been created on social media,” it outrightly rejected the same calling it “grossly exaggerated and misleading.” To give this big fat lie a semblance of authenticity, ISPR added that “Presence of a small number of armed men on a few mountain tops between Swat and Dir has been observed, located far away from the population.” 

Since this deliberate attempt by Rawalpindi to deceive both the executive and public through an official communication occurred under Gen Bajwa’s charge, the defence minister’s view that the then army chief should be questioned is perfectly in order as well as essential from the accountability angle. However, given the embarrassing details that would emerge should this happen, there’s no possibility of Gen Munir giving a go-ahead to this request. How damaging the disclosures could be can be gauged by the source-based revelation by British-Pakistani journalist Gul Bukhari that the Pakistan army’s secret deal with TTP involved “signing away fundamental rights of citizens in return for peace”!

 Furthermore, since no Pakistan army chief has ever been asked to justify his ill-considered actions that harmed the nation, why should Gen Munir set a precedent that could threaten Rawalpindi's vulnerability? 

Field Marshal Ayub Khan didn’t have to explain the rationale of going ahead with ‘Operation Gibraltar’, a ludicrous military plan to wrest control of J&K by inciting a local insurrection orchestrated and led by regular soldiers disguised as razakars [civilian volunteers] that pushed Pakistan into a full blown war with India in 1965. Gen Yahya Khan was never called to give reasons for approving ‘Operation Torchlight’ in 1971, a pogrom  that gave the army unbridled powers to indiscriminately kill, maim, torture and violate civilians in what was then known as East Pakistan that accelerated the country’s dismemberment.

Gen Pervez Musharraf was the only army chief who had to face charges of high treason, as the judiciary refused to be cowed down by Rawalpindi. But he never appeared in court, thanks to the personal intervention of the then Pakistan army chief Gen Raheel Sharif. Gen Musharraf himself revealed that “I have been his [Gen Sharif’s] boss and I have been the army chief before him. He helped [me] out …” He went on to elaborate that “Once he [Gen Sharif] got the government to relieve the pressure that they were exerting, the courts gave their judgment and allowed me to go abroad for treatment.”

True to its tradition of keeping the army top brass beyond the reach of law, the Pakistan army ensured that its former chief indefinitely extended his treatment period abroad so that he wouldn’t have to face a trial. And when Gen Musharraf took the impulsive decision to return and participate in elections as well as fight his court cases, Rawalpindi again came to his rescue. Dawn reported a source disclosing that the then DGISI Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha had “held a meeting with him [Musharraf] in Dubai and advised him not to return to the country as the situation is not conducive for his return."  

The constitution of Pakistan stipulates that “the Federal Government shall have control and command of the Armed Forces,” and as such the Ministry of Defence is empowered to order any serving/retired member of the armed forces to be called-in for questioning. So, when the defence minister is convinced that Gen Bajwa “must be questioned about why he resettled these [TTP] militants,” he can always order the same.  However, there’s a catch- though it technically qualifies as a democracy with an elected government, in practice Pakistan has a unique military-dominant hybrid form of governance, where the army and not legislature has the final say, and the 'Dawn Leak' incident exposes the absolute power the Pakistan army enjoys.

Readers would recall that in 2017, when Dawn reported that the Pakistan army top brass had been told by the government that “military-led intelligence agencies are not to interfere if law enforcement acts against militant groups that are banned or until now considered off-limits for civilian action,” all hell broke loose. Rawalpindi demanded that this news leak be investigated at the highest levels and action taken against those responsible and the Prime Minister's Office [PMO] dutifully complied.

However, when the PMO released the inquiry report, DG ISPR, who was just a two-star General publicly scoffed the same saying, “Notification on Dawn Leak is incomplete and not in line with recommendations by the Inquiry Board. Notification is rejected.” Now, when a two-star General can outrightly “reject” a notification issued by the PMO, how can one expect the defence minister to have the courage to summon a four-star General [albeit retired], who had once headed the Pakistan army?

And therein lies Pakistan's problem!

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